Somewhat Damaged: A Downward Spiral
by Sir Eval Sweetwater
Summary: This universe is a violent fluid: changing, collapsing, imploding, and exploding. Caught in the Void, Ayeka will find the only way out is through. Canto 3: Bathwater Beta Version 0.6.5 released. Strong language.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Tenchi Muyo or claim to own anything in association with the Tenchi Franchise. Pioneer and AIC own all right to the franchise and not me. Warning: loss of money will result if you try to sue me, Sir Eval Sweetwater, for I am not in anyway financially rich, in saying so, your time and lawyers (especially lawyers) will offset any money gain from me by several millions, since I don't make much money, you're wasting your time and money! I also do not have any rights to the Conspiracy Factor franchise.

**

* * *

**

**Somewhat Damaged**

By Sir Eval Sweetwater

_

* * *

_

Prologue

000

* * *

_Life…is meaningless  
We exist because we think we exist, even if we try to deny it  
We still __exist,though, one could say:__"in a different level existence"_

_I think therefore I am_

_Reality  
Is in the eye of the beholder, or should I say, "In the mind of the beholder"  
Complex brain functions are what we use to determine our outside environment And since we experience – this so-called "reality" differently  
It is safe to imply that what you see is not what I see, or he see, or even she _

_I think therefore it is_

_Emotions  
Are a little more complicated  
We evaluate and interpret what we see  
What stimulates us and produce hormones  
To understand and cope with existence and reality _

_I think therefore I felt_

_And so  
The endless helix of utter meaningless  
Spirals for eternity  
Questioned but petrified_

_We can only assume  
What we think we know  
And produce what we want to produce_

_I think therefore I must have_

_And what do we produce?  
Purpose? _

--------------------------------------------------

December 12th, 2010 AD/ 0042 SE/ 1st Year of Hideki Amaki's Reign

A day like any other day, the sun rose softly from the eastern shoreline diminishing the fog that had settled on the night before. The city slowly came alive with people opening up their shops of business. The Le Mar Bay Fishing Wharf, as usual, opened earlier than anywhere else in the city. No surprise, since fishermen often prefer catching fish at night in the waters of the Murray and haul their catch to the wharf to be sold to the merchants as soon as possible, the early morning.

Through the mostly empty streets, a woman walked alone, rich blue hair cascaded down her slim small back. She wore a traditional Atmissian dress, known as a Ce Mana, it was a sleeveless, light-weight, summer dress in a hue of light blue. It was a very simple dress, really.

She reached her little bakery "_La Boulangerie Rose"_ and opened her little shop about an hour before the students of the local primary and secondary schools arrived at her shop on their way to school. She started her daily routing of baking breads and pastries.

_"What a wonderful day!"_ she thought to herself, true, it was not like the home she had left almost a year ago but compared to Jurai this place was a lot better. Here, no one knew her; she was just a regular Jane living life comfortably and hopefully peaceful.

She sat near the cash register welcoming customers and making transactions. _What a great life_, she has not felt this way about life in a long time, who knew such a simple lifestyle could bring her such, _joy!_

But then, just as she was enjoy this fine day, a woman dress in a Galaxy Police uniform walked into her shop, "Hello, are you the owner of this fine establishment? I'm First Class GPX Homicide Detective Yoko Yurie." And with that, she extended her arm to the lady behind the counter.

The blue-haired lady behind the counter didn't move she just stared at her. _Homicide Detective, shit, better act cool._

"Akime Naoko, how can I help you?" Akime then shook the officer's hand. _Damn, ruining my good mood! _

"Yes, actually, Miss Naoko I was wondering if you have any time to spare? The GPX and the Juraian Government believe you might have valuable information that might lead to the resolution of a homicide. I'm really only here to discuss a certain purchase you recently made."

_Purchase? _"Absolutely, take all the time you need."

"Don't worry Miss Naoko, this will only take a few minutes."

"'Kay"

Akime got up from her side of the counter and walked towards the door and locked it. She then turned the "open" sign that was hanging on the store window backwards so that it now read "close" from the outside. She then looked towards Yoko and smiled, "Would you like some coffee? Cordongates is known for our famous Athenian coffee."

"Oh, ah", Yoko extended her arms trying to deny the offer but…_Damn! This is too tempting. Ah man, I can smell it brewing._

"Please, sit down at one of the tables. Are you hungry, Miss Yurie?" Pointing at the few tables she had inside her shop. _Resistances is futile, woman!_

"To tell you the truth, I just arrived here not to long ago. I could sure use something to eat." Yurie sat down at one of the tables and opened her laptop she was carrying with her and waited for the all-too-welcoming mug of coffee.

Akime came back with a red tray with two tall coffee mugs and an arrangement of sweet breads. "I hope you like sweets," she said putting the tray down and giving Yurie her coffee, "These here are called Conchas, they're very good! Especially delicious when they are warm and soft like these here."

"Thank you, Miss Naoko" _Wait, did she say conchas? Sweet, delicious conchas? Strange._

"You're welcome." Akime sat down on the other side of the table sipping some of her coffee. Yoko garbed and munched on one of the super tasty Conchas on the red tray while Akime simply sipped some more of her coffee.

"These are very good! Where did you learn to bake?" She managed say in between bites. She tried to be clean, a difficult task since the sugary, hardened paste on top of the bread often crumbles by even the slightest pressure.

"Why, thank you, I started baking quite awhile ago when I lived on a remote planet – somewhere, hmp" she paused averting her eyes to her coffee, "and then – I took cooking classes in the Universal Art Institute in Ghanjiha." She looked up and smiled, an obviously fake smile.

Yoko could tell something was not right; she will have to push Ms. Naoko if she wanted to find out more.

"Really, I've seen this type of bread before, this remote planet, by any chance, called Earth?", A bit suspicious, Yoko look more carefully at Akime's eyes, _If she says no she's lying, this is an Earth product!_ Not only that but the Concha was a regional product almost exclusivity sold in North America, especially Mexico.

"Why, yes! Either you're psychic or my civil liberties are being abused!" She giggled, her laughter left a bitter taste in her mouth, _oh wait, that's right, I'm drinking coffee._

"Miss Naoko, don't worry, your civil liberties are not being compromised, I just happened to be currently living there." _Well, she didn't lie, I think I could trust her, though, quite strange she'd been to Earth, a non-interference zone even now. _

"Oh, I see." _Shit! Washu tracked me down! She's dead what do you have to prove! Why can't they just leave me alone! Damn you Tenchi! _

Yoko finished drinking her coffee and swiped the crumbs off her lips, "So, what do I owe you."

"It's your lucking day, Miss Yurie, you owe me nothing." _I hope this doesn't qualify as bribery, though, I do wish the same effect._

"Miss Naoko, may we precede? I would like to ask you a few questions?" Yoko focused her attention on her laptop, searching for the case files.

Akime folded her arms across her chest, "Go ahead."

Yoko cleared her throat, "Okay, on May 5th, 0041 of the Space Era did you purchase a Sandoval Industries Z38 Military Version Alphamanadroid, unit number NU-Z38-PAI85-7648-109?"

_Be cool, _"Well, I certainly do have a Sandoval Industries Z38, but I did not know it was a military version, the android has proven itself useful I programmed it for servitude."

"Yes well, we're not concerned about you owning a military Z38, outdated anyways, but what we're concerned about is how you purchased a military Z38."

"Well, it came along as an incentive for purchasing the space ship I bought." Akime notice that Yoko was typing on her small laptop and it seems she was looking through it carefully.

"A Trans-Universal B-type Cruiser the "Dragonfly" built by Washu?" Yoko said.

"Ah, yes it's the Dragonfly, but, Washu? I don't understand? The make of the vehicle is Katavov-Saeryuu International, the LeCompton R9 Twin Engine Specter is the model; it said in the manual." Raising her hand with extended index finger.

"Miss Naoko, no such model has ever been produce, true, there is much a thing as the Lecompton R9 CIV, but the R9s are commercial frigates."

"Oh" Akime knew it was from Washu, the R9 was something she read in the news and tried to use to bullshit her way out of the incriminating question.

Yoko informed Akime, "Your dealer probably got the vehicle from the black market and stuck a name on it, including the manual."

"Oh", _Right, actually, the ship has no name beyond "Dragonfly" and why would Washu write up a manual for her own ship, Yoko's probably isn't thinking right, shame on you! You call yourself a detective!_

A small period of silence grew between the two, both waited for the other to speak.

"Anyways, does your ship have a bluish-green tint on the hull and a crab-like image imprinted on the control console?" Yoko said, the silence broken.

"Yes! It's really cute and FAST!" Clapping her hands together, "ah, not that I'm disobeying the speed and acceleration limits or anything." Damn, Akime almost blew her innocents straight out the door, _got to be more careful._

"Okay, sure," _right_, "just a few more questions, do you know from who you purchased the Dragonfly and the Z38?"

"Why, I don't remember, all the paperwork is at home. But I think I remember it was from a dealership in Ghanjiha. Let's see, Reihy's Dealership! I think, why?"

"Are you certain?" She was not sure if she believed her story, something about Ms. Naoko seemed odd.

"Yes," putting on her most honest face, "I'm pretty sure it was from Reihy's"

"Okay, here's the deal, Miss Naoko, you purchased a stolen vehicle. Now under the Universal Accord, we have to compound the ship" She said it as plainly as she could.

"But that's my ship!" Akime said in protest, "You have no right to take property with out due process of law!"

"Yes, you're right, but it's not your ship and the paperwork is being processed and - look, don't worry Miss Naoko, you're going to get your money back from the dealership."

"That's a lot of money, Miss Yurie, though, that means I could put it in the bank and save up..." Akime went into deep thought.

_Hmp! She's a strange one._ "One last question, do you, by any chance, know this woman on this image", Yoko turned the laptop to face Akime, a picture was on the screen.

Akime stared at the image, _there she was in that image with – Tenchi, _and it gave her goose bumps just looking at her. _She's dead. _

"Miss Akime?"

Akime snapped back, "No, I – never met her, I sorry, I can't help you."

* * *

End of Prologue

* * *

Author's Notes 

Alt. Universe, although time is constant, history is dynamic. Having said this, everyone has their own story to tell about their place in history, their contribution, their reason for existence. Based heavily on Tenchi Muyo OVA series, I consider this fanfic more of an anthology or a group of intertwining stories of several characters and their place in history, rather than one story. The most important characters in this story are Ayeka and a new character simply named D, this is not a A/D romance nor a A/T romance either, they simply will change the course of events more than others.

Another Note: This is also not a Ryoko/Tenchi romance, though it might lean to an R/T. But this does not mean much, if you're expecting a Ryo-Tenchi forever type fic, than please stop reading as of now, for your only wasting your time. Criticism can be constructive, but I will ignore all R/T suggestive comments.

Also, I'm trying something different from other Tenchi fanfics so don't be to surprise if the story is so unorthodox.

--

11/13/2005: I will be releasing Canto Three in parts! Part I by this year!

* * *

Top of Form

Bottom of Form


	2. Chapter One: Canto One

_001_

* * *

**Somewhat Damaged**

By Sir Sweetwater

* * *

Anthology One

* * *

Chapter One

The Emissary

* * *

Canto One

The Beginning

* * *

April 15th, 2002 

Indian Ocean near Burma (Bay of Bengal), Earth (1:30 AM)

The waters near Burma were calm, for the first time in several months had the giant deep blue calm its rage and let Earth's gravity smoothen the ocean's surface out, of course, this could rapidly change, and for those who were interested in the condition of the Indian Ocean this probability was a thorn on their side. But, for right now, the ocean was peaceful, the waves no more than small mounds in a valley of water. There were no clouds, and the black heavens were adorned with many bright diamonds, the only thing missing was the moon. This didn't matter, had it been a night with a full moon would have made it even more risky; thankfully, DARPA had funded programs that dealt with seeing in the dark. Nevertheless, the wait was still on but they knew they have only a small window of time to act upon before it was too late, but the conditions were still not right, there was one element that needed to subdue before the operation could continue, the wind.

Zephyrus, the god of the west wind, must have heard their prayers. Their success or failure could determine the lives millions of people who have just started recovering from a recent act of terrorism. So, it seemed, as by a miracle, the winds had slowed to a modest five knots; now the conditions were set and they could start the operation.

------------------------------------------------------

December 28th, 1996

Area 88 Underground Military Research Facility inside Death Valley National Park, California, USA

Page 812 of Dr. Otto Kirschner's Journal

We finally did it! We finally have managed to out do God! No longer are humans simple creations of God, who ever that may be, but master of life! No longer are we humans at the tyrannical acts of God but at the grand salvation of science! And science will, inevitably, bring us closer to our creator and beyond our second-rate, god-made bodies!

We are now at the apex of the start of a revolution, we, not God, control the gift of life and our own destiny! Oh, if only Emma was here to see this.

See, them. They are beautiful children who are not plagued with the varying attributes of natural selection and randomness of genetics, no, not them! They are built on specifications that were well thought-out and planned. These two children are blessed by science and baptized by us, the scientists. They are godless, they are powerful, they are perfect. Their lives may be wrapped in damnation, but they hold the key to this revolution.

Science is their mother and I am their father!

But, work still must be done.

Otto Kirschner

--------------------------------------------------------

April 15th, 2002

Indian Ocean near Burma, Earth (1:35 AM)

Beneath the great blue of the Indian Ocean, a massive mammal of black steel rose up from the abyss slowly as to not disturb the natural harmony of the ever changing sea. It glided, slowly upwards to the surface of the ocean, not a sound was made, nothing, not even the humming of the engines or the creaks and clangs of metal loosening from under days of intense deep sea pressure. Steady the ship ascended foot by foot until its murky shadow under the surface of the ocean could be seen in this moonless night. But it's apparent that this submarine is no ordinary nuclear sub, no, not by any standards. It did not bore a conning tower that most, if not, all submarines were designed with, nor any type of periscope or any visible outcropping on the ships hull.

The black ship's back broke the water's surface as quietly as it has been; sea water ran down the monster's dorsal and back into the ocean. The visible top was shaped oddly, a semi-flatten, wide dorsal of smooth blackened titanium-alloy, no insignia or number to identify it origin. Truly, uninspiring if not for its colossal size, this at the moment, was dwarfed by the massiveness of the Indian Ocean.

The submarine was the USS Coverthound, the world's most highly advanced, nuclear, tactical aircraft carrying submarine with ballistic strike capability. At an astonishing one-thousand eight-hundred fifty-two feet in length this aircraft carrier could carry over eighty-two fully loaded fighter craft, one-thousand eight-hundred and sixteen crewmembers including their living quarters, one-hundred thousand cubic feet displacement for anti-aircraft and cruise missiles, and two parallel one-thousand one-hundred foot runway with four main elevators and one large elevator in the back, twelve eighteen-inch cannons in four three-barreled turrets retracted inside the submarine on the left side, thirty twin 50-caliber turrets, twelve MK 96 turrets, eighteen turrets with four five-inch cannons a turret, twelve Phalanx Two CIWS and many other self-defense and assault weaponry hidden inside the ship's hull. The ship was equipped with enough weaponry to take on an entire army and then some. Of course, the weapons have never been used in actual combat, the Puppet Wars along with the Cold War ended before its completion date in 1990.

--------------------------------------------------------

USS Coverthound

Specifications

Builders: General Dynamics Electric Boat Division/Naval Research Port Haer Maigas, Alaska.

Power Plant: One S9GC nuclear reactor

core reloaded every nine years

sixteen geared steam turbines,

4 shafts, output of 220,000 hp

Length: 1852 feet ( meters)

Displacement: Submerged 483,764 tons

Speed: Official: 35+ knots

Actual: 45+ knots submerged speed

Operating Depth: Official: "greater than 2,000 feet"

Actual: less than 1,600 feet

Crew: 50 Officers, 840 Enlisted (not including pilots)

Project Total Cost: $120, 700,000,000

Unit Price $14,500,000,000

Unit Operating Cost

Annual Average $60,000,000

Date Deployed November 2, 1990 (_USS Coverthound_)

Date remanufactured December 8, 2001 (_USS Coverthound_)

--------------------------------------------------------

December 30th, 1996

Area 88 UMRF, Death Valley NP, CA, Earth (1:45 am)

Page 845 of Otto Kirschner's Journal

The subject D-001 is stable, alive, I cannot write any more at this time. My mind is somewhere else, on him.

Otto Kirschner

--------------------------------------------------------

April 15th, 2002

Indian Ocean near Burma, Earth (1:50 AM)

USS Coverthound lay calmly in the darkness of the night, most of the submarines body was underneath the waves but a good portion of it was above the ocean. The ship did not initiate any movement, nothing, for the longest minute ever, only the low ups and downs of the hull as the waves pass the submarine.

And then the beast awoke with a great mechanical roar! The advantage of secrecy had diminished, for now on the submarine would be exposed. Slowly, the flatten upper hull began to rise and open up in the middle into two section, slabs to be more precise, parallel to each other. Of course, it wasn't has smooth, the sections at least weighed several hundred tons causing the hydraulics to struggle and shake the sections of the hull into a low vibration. Slowly the two pieces of the hull began to descend on each side of the submarine until they were perfectly straight forming a flat deck on top of the massive submarine. The flat top was the submarine's two lane one-thousand one-hundred foot runway made up of a special aluminum alloy and coated in a black hard synthetic rubber and aluminum-alloy composite compound that provided extra friction for takeoffs and landings, the composite compound also was used to strengthen the light aluminum-alloy frame that made up the structure of the runway. Red runway lights mechanically appeared from the flattop's landing strip, the lights formed three long rows on the strip's surface. The massive elevator in the back of the sub was retracted down.

But not for long, as it quickly pulled itself up carrying a very strange aircraft. The elevator stopped as it aligned itself to the runway. Now the details of the strangely design craft came to view, the craft was a bit bigger than a F-14 Tomcat, it was oddly shape and was missing a vertical stabilizer, the fat wings were folded on the craft's sides.

The aircraft quickly sprang to life and slowly move towards the runway strip, the fat wings slowly unfolded themselves. It was clearly blended-wing type airplane, like the B2 bomber, only not as wide and a bit chubby. The craft had no cockpit or windows, no doubt, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The craft seemed to have a strange hump in the back; probably a cargo bay, for there was no other reason for it to be there on the craft. The plane's top was painted a desert camouflage and its belly a solid sky blue coat. So it seemed the craft was ready for a daytime mission.

The craft finally made it to the runway, there it stopped. The craft stood silently at the back of the submarine were the runway began.

The craft opened several hatches on the bottom of the craft's wings aided by hydraulics. Four slots of identical size opened up around the craft on the runway, they were straight and parallel to each other, underneath the wings of the craft. Mechanical arms rose up from the open slots, each had their own propose, the two robotic arms near the fuselage provide the airplane with aviation fuel and large caliber rounds for the craft's hidden rapid-fire cannons, and other armaments. The other two robotic arms were at the tips of the crafts wings, they loaded air-to-air missiles inside the chubby wings, and once they were finished they fell back into the ship only to come back up with two more objects. Both arms seemed to be holding what appeared to be strange looking white objects. They were two small UAVs with folded wings and with an array of weapons, movable cannons, and missile launchers sticking out from all around. The robotic arms placed the smaller UAVs on the wing tips of the blended-wing aircraft, as the craft ignited its two massive prototype jet engines that where on the crafts wings.

The plane slowly crept forward, as the noise of the engine grew louder, and louder, and louder. The thrust burned a heavy blue which made craft move faster, and evermore faster, it rolled down the runway, and faster the thrust pushed it. One-hundred feet...one-hundred fifty feet...three-hundred fifty feet...five-hundred feet... eight-hundred feet and at last the craft lifted into the air. The engines worked hard so that the craft's heavy body could get altitude, there was no fear of running out of fuel considering that the prototype engines were so efficient that, given to its fuel capacity, could stay in the sky with out refueling at nine hundred miles an hour for forty-eight hours. Slowly, the craft disappeared into the darkened skies. The cold, blue glow of the twin afterburners disappeared from the submarines view as it gained altitude.

Slowly, as the afterburners of the craft's engine faded into the sky, the submarine screeched and trembled as it made loud mechanical noises, the runway lights disappeared, and the two section of the top hull of the submarine slowly came back to there precise position. After a minute or so, the ship was intact and back to its original form, the sub no longer made a sound. And steadily, the USS Coverthound returned to the ocean's great depths where it disappeared.

* * *

Canto One: Part II

* * *

December 21st 2001 

En Route to Secret Training Facility "Frozen Fortress" in between Barrow and Kaktovik, Alaska (12:20 AM)

"Frozen Fortress" Experimental Training Facility has always been wrapped in mystery and fear ever since it's reconstruction during the early 90's when artic combat was no longer a real possibility, due mostly to the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. It no longer had a purpose; the Cold War had ended, so why is the government spending fifteen billion dollars an year keeping the "Frozen Fortress" operational? What are they hiding? Are they testing new technologies? Are they experimenting on aliens? These questions seem to be an alluring hobby to Roger Mayberry, newly appointed Assistant Director of Maintenance for Alaskan Testing and Technology Facilities. From what he had acquired, he knew the US had nothing serious to hide in most of its top secret facilities. They were mostly experimental training sites and top secret proving grounds for testing the latest technology, for the most part, they tested improved version of current weapons and vehicles, they were first classified to prevent the KGB from spying and stealing advance technologies from the US, they are now kept secret to prevent the Chinese and the EU from stealing said technologies. But "Frozen Fortress" was different; it was neither a proving ground nor a hardware testing site either. It was simply known as a training facility, but for training who? And for what propose?

For Mayberry, these questions of the purpose of the "Frozen Fortress" will soon be answered. This reality dawned on him, for the first time in his lifetime he will be inside the infamous "Frozen Fortress", he couldn't believe this was happening and so quickly. Well, not really, ever since he was recruited into the Internal Government, life has been a long, agonizingly boring experience or so it seemed, he couldn't really tell, he was too tired to remember much. He did remembered the strict and punishing training he had to endure for thirteen months when he started working for the IG, and the constant paper work he did for the past eight years, it all seemed easy and unchallenging and dreadfully boring. Really unchallenging as he look back on those day, he remember that, for the most part of his desk job days, reports were written more like mementos than actual reports. Hell, most reports were barely a paragraph long, and you didn't even have to be grammatical correct. But than again, the Internal Government was not a bureaucracy and the only red tape was with Central Command, CentCom.

But now...

_Ah crap! I'm in Alaska! And I was barely getting use to the hot, humid weather in Georgia!_

Mayberry slammed the back of his head onto his seat, which was bolted down inside a 737 that was owned by the Air Force for non-military use. The sudden back force that came with hitting the seat knocked his loose glasses off his head and slid down to his legs. Roger did not try to pick up his glasses, he was too tired.

Roger Mayberry was once an outsider, an untouchable that lacked any understanding of human interaction. A computer nerd, he saw computer has his only way out from society's harsh comments and strict, empty values. With computers, he felt a sense of freedom; he could be himself and not have to worry what anybody had to say. As far as he was concerned, they didn't exist. And computers don't judge, not like those bastards in high school.

He was now in his mid-thirties, he wore a heavy, blue cotton, button-down short sleeve shirt and a pair of khaki pants that were a bit high-water with his favorite worn-down, black snickers, he also wore socks, one black and other dark purple. His clothing fit loosely over his malnourished pale, small frame. He's face was sculptured by his long facial bones and lack of fatty tissue. He had a full set of hassle brown hair that was poorly groomed and no facial hair, 'cept for those embarrassing nose hairs in his long nose. He saw through a pair of dark brown eyes, that from afar, blended with the blackness of his pupils. He hated his eyes, they were not pretty nor like everyone else's, theirs' were big, bold, colorful, and full of life, his were the opposite: small, dull, lifeless dots.

Mayberry's only form of enjoyment and reason to live, in his mind, was to work on computers; developing software, playing PC games, internet, building high end PCs and servers, hacking, anything that dealt with computers. This obsession with PCs and electronics was the sole reason he got himself into the Internal Government, even though, they approached him first. The offer to join the IG seemed the perfect opportunity for him to use the government's highly advance super computers. But, his dreams were shattered before they got off the ground, the IG did not want him at the beginning for his computer know-how but because of his lightning-quick typing.

He spent eight whole years typing "reports" and documents, and minutes, and agendas, and inventory, and anything and all that could be typed. But, all that has changed because of the recent lack of IG personnel, which reminded him...

As I remembered, there were about a million personnel back in 2001's first quarterly review and in the forth quarter review there were only four-hundred thousand personnel. Strange, were did they all go?

This wasn't much of a question, since in his mind he "knew" the answer.

_Poor souls..._

But what he "knew" was solely based on gathered indirect information on the IG. During his thirteen month training, Mayberry had considering quitting his involvement in the IG. But, that changed when he went to see Mike Henway, Executive Director for Personnel Training (sounds important, it's not).

* * *

Flashback

* * *

Mayberry was finally out of computer engineering class, god, he hated that class, everything they're trying teach him he already knows. Mayberry was either in a class or at a workshop for half of the day for the past ten months, he spends half the day working and the other half the day studying, there was no end to this misery. All that time, he never got to see any of the advance technologies that the government had in its possession. He had to get out now, there's no way he can endure this torture. 

Mayberry was being trained inside the underwater deep-sea facility El Castillo del Mar (Facility C-123 "the Sea Castle") two-hundred miles from California's coast secretly in international waters. The whole facility was made out of shiny metals, every cramp with little comforts. It didn't bother him much but he wanted out of this place, anyway. And the only way he "thought" he could get out was through the Executive Director for Personnel Training, Mike Henway.

Henway's office was pass the sleeping quarters, pass the recreation center, up two level, through a long hallway, left through security, through several areas and finally inside Hallway C-8 Level 2, the Executive's Hall.

Roger walked at a steady pace, it was nine o'clock, and curfew starts at nine forty-five. He stepped into the Executive's Hall at around nine fifteen, the hall was a creepy-looking place. He walk through the hall slowly, it was quiet, which magnified the creepiness of the long hallway. The hall had some decorations that the rest of the facility did not: the floor was carpeted and the walls were plastered and painted, red steel doors on the right and large painted portraits of the sea and people on the left. The lights were dimmed down so much that he could barely see the other side of the long hallway, there was no windows, of course.

Roger reached the door of Henway's office at the end of the hall, the door was made out of stamped sheet metal, textured to give it a bumpy feel. It was painted in a sickening burgundy red, a plastic plate was glued on the door, "Mike Henway: Exec. Director of Personnel Training" was written on it.

Roger made three light knock on the door, "Director? May we speak?" Nobody answered.

Roger knocked again but this time a little harder on the burgundy door; he hoped that the director had just taken a nap on the job. He heard he was quite old, some of his fellow trainees told him that he severed in Vietnam at age thirty as a Forward Flight Coordinator for naval aircraft for close air support. Got shot in the ass by a VC sniper, well that's the story around here; he could have just shot himself accidentally.

Mayberry looked around the poorly lit hall again and notice a door opening on the southern end of the hall. A woman with dark brown hair wearing a dark blue, female officer suit and matching beret, who looked important, walked through the door entrance and into the hallway, heading his way; they made eye contact but no reaction on both sides. He ignored the lady and knock on the door again. No answer. At last he went for the door knob.

"Stop! Don't Move! Don't Open the Door!" The yell came from inside Henway's office.

"What! Why!"

In a low creepy voice, "My door is booby-trapped with two kilos of C-4 plastic explosive and M18 Claymore mines"

Mayberry was shocked! Definitely not expecting that, "What! Why the hell do you need that for! You don't need that shit! This is a secret underwater installation; if anything, you're going to punch a hole in the place! And we're all going to be shrink-wrapped because of your ass!"

"I neeeeed--- to protect myself from Charlie!" saying it in a psycho, as-matter-of-fact annoying ass hiss.

The dark haired, Caucasian lady that Mayberry previously spotted, was minding her own business when she stopped to take a drink from the water fountain near by, she got up from her kneeling position and walked away without looking at Mayberry, as doing so she said, "Hey, relax kid, that "C-4" his no more dangerous than my son's playdo, in fact...", she turns around and walks back to the director's door

"Hey, asshole! My son wants his clay back!" The director quickly opens the door partially, and with his paranoid eyes looking around. His face was wrinkled, with big bushy eyebrows, and buzz cut gray and black hair. Underneath the sag, Mayberry could tell the director had a muscular face but he looked malnourished. _"Is that what I'll look like in fifty years, yeesh! Memo to self, never get a buzz cut and trim down the brows."_

"Yeah, really", the director looks her straight in the eyes, seeing if he could out "look" her. A big no-no, since the one he was "looking" at was a mother of four boys and a wife of a fat slob. The director had no chance, she had the "look" and the duration and the experience. The director took his eye away from the lady and gave a defensive, sadistic laugh. And then he stopped and looked more serious.

In a low voice, "He can have his C-4 but I'm keeping the C-3"

"Which is?" The lady said, a little annoyed

"The brown one." His eyes move to Mayberry, who was now on the floor, head first. The lady exhaled tiredly,

"Alright, keep the brown playdo"

"You better watch it lady, when CHARLIE! Comes bustin' in and starts killin', you'll be dead! You'll be dead! Like everyone else! But when he's lookin' for me and walks in this office--- BLOOM!"

She had no time for amusements, "What? You're going to do him a favor by blowing yourself up?", not really a question, though, "Give me my son's toys back that you stole from the daycare, he's only five! You Bastard!"

"Here!" he throws the three or four plastic containers of Playdo at the lady, "Bitch!" he hissed.

The lady was furious, she backed off a little and raised her right leg and kick the director's door hard. Poor director's right fingers were in between the slightly opened door and frame at the time.

"GARHahahahahahahahahahahhahahahah!", he cried.

"Don't you ever call your supervisor a BITCH! You understand, bitch!", and did a second kick at the door, no fingers were harmed, and walked way.

Mayberry got up and look at the door that was now shut, "strange".

He called the director's name and slowly walked towards the door.

"Sir?" The door swiftly opened fully, good thing Mayberry had kept his distance. No one was behind the door, strange, but he had to talk to the director.

The room was void of light beside that of the dimmed fluorescents in the hallway. Mayberry cautiously walked into the room scanning for any "booby traps" he might encounter. He search for the light switch at the side to the door and flicked it on. He didn't see the director but he notice that the room was uber impressive; WWII relicts, such as the weapons that adorn the room, lugers, B.A.R.s, M1s, .45s, 38 specials, he even saw a SturmGevehr-44. There were also well-detailed aircraft models that hang from the roof, and pictures of military people he didn't know, and pictures of an aircraft carrier. The floor was made of steel, like all rooms in this facility, but it was mostly covered in an old afghan carpet. The room was furnished with very well-made Italian walnut and Carolinian-made mahogany furniture.

_Comfy, but a bit tacky..._

"Who's there!" the director said crawling out for under his work desk.

"Um, sir, may we speak--- you okay?" a little concerned.

"I'm fine! Nothing more than a bruise", the director garbed a white cotton cloth on top of his work desk and start wiping the blood off his right hand. He wore a worn grey officer's suit with visible moth holes and stains, probably from busted pens, there seemed to be a dozen broken pens lying on the director's desk.

He looked at Mayberry who was looking at his bloody hand and smiling, "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing more than a bruise, right--- ah sir, I'm here to speak to you about quitting the IG", Mayberry said in a more formal way with arms on his side and body straight up, at least, he thought, if he acted normal than maybe, just maybe, thing would get a little less crazy.

"Quitting the IG!" the director burst into laughter, "Oh boy, oh boy, my lucky day!" he walked away from his work desk and pass Mayberry. He stopped and stared at the gun-lavished wall.

"Okay, boy! I'll be fair to you, I'll let you choose," eyeing the wall still, "It's been a while since I used one of these, how 'bout, will a Colt suit you?"

"W-what! What do you mean?" Mayberry backed off a little to the left, moving his eye back and forth from the Director to the door. _This guy's psycho! Okay, if he reaches for the wall I'm out of here!_

"What gun do you want to be shot with, sunny", Henway turned his head towards his left catching Mayberry by his peripheral vision.

"I don't what to be killed!" he slowly walks back towards the door keeping his eye attached to Henway's every move.

The director tiredly laughed and walk to the steel shuttered sea window and opened the shutters slowly, of course, a real sea window would have been too dangerous so instead a HDTV sat in its place, imitating a tropical sea with exotic fish, he pause for a moment, "That's your name, kid?"

"Ah, Roger Mayberry, trainee, sir", relieved

"Listen here, boy...," turning his face toward Mayberry, "guess no one told you, there's only one way out of the IG.", he lifted his clean left arm and formed with his fingers what look like a hand gun and placed it next to his head, "bang!"

_

* * *

_

_"Well, now that's downsizing, all right."_

"No, that couldn't be!", he thought, why would the Internal Government mass murder three fifth of its members in less that a few months yet increase it's research productivity and increase the spending and budget by twelve billion dollars? Something about it didn't make sense; it's not like the Internal Government was restructuring, that couldn't be he would've been informed. The more he thought about it the less it made sense.

_I could understand getting rid of a few hundred-thousand after the end of the Cold War but now? So late?_ Mayberry just didn't understand, the complexity of it all made it more difficult to process. _The War on Terrorism? No, why would the IG be concerned._

Roger yawned and stretched his arms far enough to pull his muscles, he was tired. It has been thirty-seven hours since he first woke up from his bed in Atlanta, George. Now he is somewhere over northern Alaska waiting for his first facility inspection, on the job training for the most part.

Mayberry looked at his watch on his pale left hand, it was six o'clock PM, he saw that it was night outside, "Must be the time difference", he closed his eyes and "combed" his hair with his fingers. "But shouldn't there be daylight right now; it's only two o'clock here."

Roger scanned the cabin section he is on, like the civilian 737; the airplane was divided into two sections. The back section of the craft was for people of low rank or position, like janitor or technician and the front section of the craft, which in the civilian model is for first class, was reserved for officers; Roger was an officer. Mayberry notice that the cabin was quiet, beside the hum of the planes workings, which he has become accustomed to, it was also dark and cold, a few people laid scattered throughout the sparse rows of seats. Most all were asleep, few slept in a sitting position, while others used up entire rows, either laying flat and using the seats as a bed, or putting their feet on adjacent seats, curled up with there small travel blankets and resting their heads and upper bodies on the back rest of their seats. Roger also close his eyes and tried to get some sleep.

Mayberry awoke to notice the cabin lights were on and the captain was informing the tired passengers of there arrival to Derrick Airfield. People were wakening up around him and packing up and fastening their seatbelts.

"...the time is 3:25 PM and for those who have never been inside Alaska's artic circle, please notices that it is still dark outside. The sun won't be out for another month. The good news is that reports indicate clear skies and a cool temperature of only minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit and humidity at zero percent, of course... We will be landing in Derricks Airfield in about five minutes, for those going to the city of Barrow there will be a two hour delay, and for those going to the "Fortress" please remember to go inside Building 8 located near terminal 3, there will be a Frozen Fortress Liaisons waiting for you there..."

The plane landed and everyone exited out of the plane, including Mayberry. He joined a group of people who were also going to the "Frozen Fortress" and had a small chat with them while walking toward Building 8. There he saw a few well-dressed men wearing, of course, black suits who escorted him and the small group into a secret tunnel inside Building 8; there was a small, open top, tracked kart that they took to reach the "Frozen Fortress".

They finally reach the end of the tunnel into Frozen Fortress's terminal. The material of the tunnel walls were solid granite, they were definitely inside a mountain. The terminal was about forty meters underground. He left the terminal and into another building through a reinforced cement tunnel where he was met by a tall, blond male officer.

"Welcome, you must be the new "Assistant Director of Maintenance", Roger Mayberry. My name is Harvey, Harvey Taylor, Master CPO, the boss around here. Come with me, please." Harvey seemed quite young, maybe the same age as him. No doubt of Scandinavian descent. He wore a clean, crisp, dark blue uniform with distinct insignias on his coat, probably meaning Master Chief Petty Officer or "look here! Someone important", whatever, Mayberry didn't care what it meant.

Roger followed him through a long, white hallway that ended near a computer terminal. The commander placed his hand of the computer terminal and typed some sort of code and place his head on a chin rest while his eyes were wide open for a retina scan. A thick metal door opened that led to an elevator; they got into the elevator and descended downwards.

The elevator finally stopped after quite along while and the two walked out, they entered a narrow hall that led to a very, very large, circular room.

It's amazing, truly amazing how such a structure could be built. They must have pass a mile underground and barely the highest level reached. What technical feats, Mayberry had only entered the first facility in the "Frozen Fortress" and it already impressed him. The structure was spherical, he could see from where he was standing at least two kilometers. There were many people here, and stores and a small garden, and water gushing out of an artificial waterfall on one of the side of the roof into a small lake. _This structure must be a recreation center for the facility's employees_, hell, he saw a movie theater, a basketball court, an ice cream shop, a food market, an arcade, a park, and everything and anything, "Mr. Mayberry", Taylor spoke.

"hm" that's all Mayberry said, the excitement drained him of the little energy he had left.

"This large room is called Nexus One Central," Taylor spoke, "this room connects to all the other sections of the Fortress and the only way out of the Fortress for most employees. The fortress is divide into one hundred and twenty large spherical rooms carved out from inside a large, metamorphic rock mass, granite, which is the mountain you probably saw from outside."

Mayberry didn't see a mountain, it was too dark to see anything from outside. He figured Taylor had been cooped up inside the fortress a little too long to remember the sun angle patterns of the artic circle.

"Damn, it's like a city", _Man, I'm tired. All I want now is a nice bed to sleep on_.

Taylor looked at Mayberry with a stolid expression, "I see that you're not in shape to start working, if you would like I'll show you to your room."

"That'll be great commander" _Finally!_

--------------------------------------------------------

December 22, 2001

HEAD Research Facility, Western Sector Level 10 inside "Frozen Fortress" (9:00 AM) (72 miles underground near the asthenosphere)

Some sleep and a good hot shower was all Mayberry needed to be fully awake for today. He had to report to the base level were Taylor told him he will receive further orders from Mayberry's new CO.

Mayberry reached the base level two hours from then he started off, this place was a bit confusing and huge, but at least he was on time, barely. The "Frozen Fortress" was composed of over a hundred and twenty individual spherical facilities, each 2 miles in diameter, connected by a labyrinth of tunnels and elevators; the lowest room was over 74 miles underground.

There he was joined by Harvey Taylor, who escorted him through what seemed to been a lab, or a medical facility. There were many people with white lab coats going every which way, a few sentries, too. The facility was large, the walls were painted white and the fluorescents were at their highest setting, very bright. They reach another elevator and went down it, they were in another place inside the facility, but it was much darker and the walls here made of cold aluminum and grey concrete.

They walked to an office at the end of the main hall; they went through it with out knocking. Mayberry saw a middle-aged man at the desk working.

"Sir! This is the replacement you've requested." Harvey spoke.

The man at the desk sat quietly, gazing down at some paperwork, undisturbed by the brute interruption by Harvey and Mayberry, "Continue", the middle-aged man said with out strafing his eyes way from his work.

"Sir, CentCom has requested that you immediately instruct Mayberry on the materiel he will be working on"

"Very well", the old man said. Harvey left the office leaving Mayberry with the man at the desk.

The old man looked towards Mayberry and made a disappointing frown. His facial features were very distinct; Mayberry could tell the man had aged before his time. Permanent wrinkles of years of fatigue, hard work, and military service; though, he didn't look a year past fifty. High cheek bones were more distinct too due to the lack of fatty tissue and a generic nose; his lips were small, dull pinkish-red with visible signs of chapping. His face was stolid. He had no facial hair but under his wore-out beret Mayberry could see dark brown hair and scattered grayness, "So, you're Roger Mayberry?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid I don't know who you are?" Mayberry said.

"Commander Matthew J. Newman, I lead the research group in charge of project HEAD. Several higher-ups have recommended you to fill an empty position on my team."

"What? I was told that I was going to be the new Assistant Director of Maintenance?" _Ah fuck! Fucked again!_ Mayberry knew what was happening and there was nothing he could do about it. He either adapts or dies, literally.

Commander Newman got up from his sitting position from his desk; he wore what every other non-commissioned officer wore, some sort of blue military officer getup. He moved to a filing cabinet next to the right wall of his office and opened the top drawer and pulled out a manila folder. "That was a simple cover up, Mister Chief Analyst of Special Projects."

"Chief Analyst? I think there must have been a mistake, I – wasn't informed…" _Shit! Mayberry knew something like this would happen, but Chief Analyst? What the hell is that?_ "Did CentCom authorize this, sir?"

"I'm a commissioned officer. I have the power to allocate people to where they're needed most and do what needs to be done. No mistake, Mister Mayberry, you are the replacement CA I requested, though, the Broad of Internal Affairs has offered me a more experienced person to fill the job but I'm sure you'll do just fine." Commander Newman handed the manila folder to Mayberry, who hesitated to grab the folder but when relaxed a bit and garbed it from the Commander's hand.

Mayberry opened the folder and view the contents briefly. He looked back at the Commander and waited for further orders. He didn't understand what the contents said but didn't want to make a bad impression.

"Are you ready?" Commander Newman said to Mayberry, who nodded, "Good, follow me, chief analyst."

They both walked out of the office and back of the elevator and went inside a tunnel he had not seen before.

Mayberry was now a bit curious of what he had to say, "Commander, sir, I don't understand my position in your group."

"You are to be the main data analyst for Project HEAD, I'll explain what Project HEAD is later. It is a very difficult job position that you must fill, you see, you will be in charge of a very complex machine, the machine is self-operating but you will be need to monitor and adjust it during operation. Basically, you will receive continuous real-time feedback on the machine's performance and determine the proper actions base on the feedback and mission objectives."

The commander stopped walking and faced Mayberry, "Now, this is very important, you'll answer to me, the commander of this base and the Master CA and no one else, understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Mayberry said hastily. The IG was real serious about information leaks, real, real serious. Secrecy in the IG was more important than life; hundreds of thousands of people have been sacrificed for its maintenance.

They reached the end of the tunnel and into another spherical facility; the place looked like innards of a futuristic medical facility. Nice and clean, with painted walls, white of course, and sliding doors. Mayberry saw very few people here, most of them seemed to be working on computers while others carried out scientific experiments.

Mayberry and Commander Newman stopped at a door near the main hall of the facility. Commander Newman looked at Mayberry and spoke, "You will be responsible for its well being, also."

"Its well being?" Mayberry was a bit surprised to hear him say such a thing, "What kind of machine is it?"

"I think it would be better explained if I show you." Commander Newman pressed a button on the security console on the side of the sliding door and the door slide open and they both walked in.

--------------------------------------------------------

April 15th, 2002

Tain Shan Mountains Air Space, China (2:35 AM)

The black sky was thin and warm forty-five kilometers above the desert plateau, far beyond the reach of the clouds. The superficial air of the stratosphere lacked much oxygen, if there was any. It mattered not.

The ozone-rich stratosphere bounced and absorbed the intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by yesterday's sun and had kept the night warm.

And through such perils the blended-wing aircraft, the Hyperion III, made its voyage pass Chinese intelligence gathering network undetected. What a marvelous piece of technology the craft was, No doubt the builders of the craft were satisfied with the end product. And so were its owners.

--------------------------------------------------------

March 9th, 2000

Wilhelm Point Fields, Alaska 12 miles south of "Frozen Fortress"

It was during twilight, two figures walking through the freshly settled snow stopped near a mountain ridge overshadowing a frozen lake, they were dressed in black and it seemed that one was quite taller than the other. Even in twilight they wore sunglasses; large black boots, and black long trench coats with black gloves. This form of dress would be considered suicidal in this climate, it was thirty-five degrees below zero, after all, and it was only getting worse as the sun set. But it did not bother them, it seemed.

They stood there, watching the twilight sun set over the southern mountains.

"You know – it won't set for another month, Northern Alaska is strange that way" The short one said in a motionless undertone. He appeared middle-aged, with brown and gray hair.

The tall figure stared at the sun setting over the mountain, he lacked emotion in his face, "This-this is my first time outside."

"Of course, and you'll be seeing it a lot more soon – if there isn't any complication"

"Commander, I have – I ask for your permission to find her, Sir"

"And how do you propose we find her? We lost her signal, she's probably dead. The odds against finding her are enormous." The older man said.

"This is not a matter of probability," said the tall one, "I have to try."

"Permission denied, and that's absolute. Now, report to PH-Lab."

"As you wish, Commander"

* * *

End of Episode One: Canto One

* * *


	3. Chapter One: Canto Two

_002_

* * *

**Somewhat Damaged**

By Sir Eval Sweetwater

* * *

Anthology One

* * *

Chapter One

The Emissary

* * *

Canto Two

A Force of Darkness

* * *

_September 1997_

_Alexander Lebed, Russia's former chief of national security, stressed his assertion that Russia may have 'lost' up to 100 one-kiloton 'suitcase-sized' nuclear bombs. During a conference in Tokyo on the 22nd of September, Lebed said that despite unequivocal denials of his claim by the authorities, "the problem still exists." He repeated his view of the gravity of the situation: "These are ideal weapons to conduct nuclear terrorism... We must seriously look for them or else humankind cannot rest in peace."_

--------------------------------------------------

April 16th, 2002

Dalandzadgad Air Space, Mongolia (2:23 am)

The Hyperion III blended-wing aircraft had only one purpose. It was created for one purpose only. The vehicle was a high-altitude payload insertion ship, better known as a dropship; a sole machine was carried on board. A killing machine at that, a machine without ethics, and machine without a soul, a machine built to keep the peace by any means necessary. Any means necessary.

The Hyperion III reached its target, Dalandzadgad, Mongolia 60,000 feet above. It jerked east deeper into the desert valley to avoid the city, descending slightly. It was still dark out; the sun had not reached this side of the planet yet, even at such altitudes.

Inside its cargo hold, the 'emissary' sat, the Machine, as some would come to call him, his body was fully covered in a bulky black pressure suit, the outfit was not unlike those wore by the U2 pilots back in the days of the Cold War, only his suit was leaner and took the shape of his body, which was well-toned. His face was covered by a menacing-looking breathing apparatus, from which he took deep, slow breaths. His eyes were covered by the mask's dark visor.

He was strapped tight to the structure of the aircraft, facing back, to prevent movement during flight. The cargo hold was dark, cold, and cramp. Only a low-burning red bulb brought enough light into the cargo hold for a normal human to barely see. He sat there staring at the light, calm and relax.

Then, the craft shifted sharply to one side, exerting massive g-forces to occupant, who responded by placing his left leg farther left to counter-balance the force. The red light that flickered from the floor of the cargo hold became yellowish. And after the aircraft regained a straight course the emissary released the safety straps that held him in place and crouched forward towards the center of the cargo hold, the parachute and supplies on his back restricted his movement. He faces forward placing both hands on the two handles jutting out from the floor of the cargo hold and waited, watching the yellowish light flicker.

The doors to the cargo hold were oddly built. They rolled on tracks that moved the doors from their cargo hold position to the plane's wings. It was a smooth process since the wings were technically part of the blended-wing's fuselage. They opened from the top exposing the contents in the cargo hold to the rushing air. This was due to the way the craft was designed. In part, the low profile was calculated to reduce air drag since the crafts bulkiness made the plane inheritably 'aerodynamically challenged'. But mainly it was to minimize turbulence during supersonic insertions because the disturbance on the experimental vehicle's structure could spell trouble for the craft's integrity. It was an experimental aircraft with very little practical use but it possessed a uniqueness that was irreplaceable in the IG's inventory.

The flickering yellow light turned solid, he grasped the handles with all his strength as the doors of the cargo hold opened letting a sudden gust of wind channeled through, the wind was strong enough to push him out of the aircraft but he held on watching the light flickering. And then, it turned green.

He let go of the handles, the wind pulled him out of the cargo hold at incredible speed separating him from the craft. He extended his hands as he descended downward at a high rate, 60,000 feet from the surface of the Earth. He stretched his whole body, the black pressure suit fluttered violently as he fell towards earth.

50,000 feet

40,000 feet

--------------------------------------------------

Mayberry and Commander Newman entered a room much like any other room in the 'Fortress", but this room held something quite unique.

"Wha? What is that!" Mayberry shouted. He now saw the very nature of Project HEAD and it was…"human?"

--------------------------------------------------

30,000 feet

25,000 feet

--------------------------------------------------

"Human? No, Chief Analyst, this thing is not human— it's the fruits of our labor, millions of man hours and hundreds of billions of capital." Commander Newman paused as he looked towards the machine, "He is more than human."

--------------------------------------------------

20,000 feet

10,000 feet

5,000 feet

1,000 feet

600 feet

He deployed his ram-air canopy parachute. The parachute quickly slowed him down as he descended down towards the desert valley.

Only a few feet from the ground, he released his parachute—freefalling towards the ground below. His big black boots slammed the face of the rocky outcropping. The gravity forced is body to crouch to absorb the impact. He stayed in this position for a moment, absorbing his surroundings; making sure his insertion was not compromised. It wasn't; not a soul within five miles. He stood up from his crouching position. The force of the landing ripped a large hole in his pressure suit causing the suit to deflate. He did not suffer any injuries from the fall, after all, he was not a human. He was a capable machine.

--------------------------------------------------

"D-001. That is the machine's name." The Commander faced Mayberry, "And you're this machine's active operator."

--------------------------------------------------

D-001 took off his supplies and torn black pressure suit, he did not take his devilish-looking mask off, though. He wore underneath the suit a white shirt and desert-fatigue pants. He need not advance equipment—what for? He was the equipment!

He opened his supply pack and pulled out a brown cloak, made presumably out of durable leather, and covered himself with it. The long-sleeved cloak completely hid his body from sight. He undid the strap on the back of his mask and took it off and covered his head with cloak's hood.

He looked around his environment. It was still dark but he could see, none the less; he landed in an ancient dry river basin. To the south: China, and opposite to that: Dalandzadgad. Without wait, he followed the basin north to his destination.

--------------------------------------------------

"And so it begins, CA Mayberry." Mused Commander Newman, "Remember, you're not in control, you're only monitoring and troubleshooting."

"Got'cha!" There was nothing for Mayberry to do but to watch over the monitors scattered over the main control terminal. He made sure the 'Machine' was running smoothly and corrected any abnormalities as they presented themselves. He wasn't very nervous, hell, he was getting the five star treatment! The IG provided him a very, very plush, leather-trimmed computer chair and a made-to-order light-weight wireless hydrogen-wafer fusion-powered keyboard with an awesome state-of-the-art optical-laser mouse connected to an ultra-fast supercomputer (678.72 teraflops, by the way), oh, and did I mention the, not one, not two, but three 32" plasma display monitors? And they all rest on a large, sturdy, aluminum computer desk – and an office to go with it.

"Mission Command is inside the Coverthound so do not concern yourself with the mission at hand. Also, make sure you keep an eye on his EHD sensor and RER Receptacle Module; if they heat up above 70 degrees Celsius the mission will be terminated. Understand?" Commander Newman spoke as he retreated to the back of the room where he seated himself on a short metal chair near a table where he began to work on other material.

"Roger that!" Mayberry said cheerfully. He continued monitoring D-001's sensors. He scanned through the three monitors—such vast amounts of information passed through them, and at such rates! Faster than even the monitors' fresh rate, Mayberry exaggerated. Of course, there is no possible way for one man to view every piece of data that came up on the monitors. But that was no problem; he did not need to review everything. All data followed certain parameters; as long as the information stays within the boundaries of the parameters Mayberry had nothing to worry about. Then again, it's never that easy. He notices a slight change in the EHD sensor, a spike in energy consumption, the data was highlighted in yellow, so it stayed within, at least, the edge of its parameter, nothing to worry about as of yet.

What did EHD mean anyways? How was he supposed to be this 'analyst' if he didn't even know this damn material! "Commander, Sir?"

"What is it CA Mayberry?" Commander Newman had taken a seat near the back in a small nook in the corner, busied by paperwork spread on top of an aluminum coffee table. The middle-aged man glanced back at the control station where Mayberry was seated.

"Commander, I know my job concerns on-a-need-to-know-basis information but how am I suppose to work efficiently as a 'chief analyst', especially as a 'Chief Analyst of Special Projects' if the information I work with is censored?" He turned his head toward the Commander. "Kind of defeats the point of being an information analyst."

The Commander glanced back to his paperwork and began typing up some classified document on his laptop, unconcerned with Mayberry's question. Mayberry gave up as fast as he started, if the information he wanted was so wrapped in secrecy that even a chief analyst need not know, then too bad, S.O.L.

And then the Commander spoke: "You don't need to know much, we don't need you to know much, its better if you know nothing, but then, you do need to know some things, right?"

"That is why I'm here, isn't?"

Commander lifted his head slightly and eyed Mayberry; the Commander was a little annoyed.

"You are here to follow your superiors' orders, nothing more and most definitely nothing less. We only need you for your skills with a computer."

The Commander went back to his work laid in front of him on the desk. He was starting to regret having put Mayberry in the position he was in. But, whether or not Mayberry would suffice him as his subordinate CA mattered not, the fact of the matter was that Mayberry was his only real choice. Those who were qualified enough to fulfill the position of CA were no longer available or – 'relocated'. And to make the commander's situation worse, hordes of Project HEAD workers were soon leaving the project to fill in gasps in the organization created by the massive restructuring of the Internal Government. Not to mention, "The Master CA for Project HEAD will soon be – 'reallocated' to a different project. If you prove yourself competent enough to manage the workings of the NS-5 Unlimited OS and software package then, we'll see, maybe you could be Project HEAD's Master CA." Most all of the key Project HEAD team member will be leaving the project, too. "You'll have all the information you want, within limits of course."

The Internal Government was in a state of passive defense and rapid modernization; the institution was always on its toes, watchful and alert. No longer was the IG the 'defender of American democracy and interests abroad' but from now on the IG will be everyone's last hope. And that hope was threatened, seriously threatened. It was clear to all of the IG's leadership, act now and possibly obtain even the tiniest sliver of a chance at victory or not act at all and submit and be absorb, or worse, annihilated. What ever destiny awaited the United State, the Internal Government would be at the center of it.

The one thing the IG lacked that its enemies had was man power, and with it size and wealth. The IG had the technology, experimental, yes, but none the less, valuable. The IG, also, has some of the greatest minds ever born and those geniuses who refused to join the IG were subsequently labeled "risk factors" and were disposed off immediately. Or, closely watched, those who proved beneficial to the advancement of civilian technologies were left mostly alone. And if one of these few intellectuals exceeds expectations, than the IG would step in and regulate the flow of ideas and technologies, and possibly hurting those who could not be contained. Brutal, yes, but vital, it is the way the IG has survived for so long.

Unfortunately, such vast freedoms were being challenged and as every hour past the enemy grew closer to the destruction of America and the Internal Government. 'Desperate' as the Internal Government's Secretary of Internal Affairs coined it, "was a softer word to use in place of hopeless." The United States and the Internal Government's sovereignty was being tested beyond the limits of elasticity and could quickly break.

And it was this reality that was the main reason for the Internal Government's realignment and Newman's troubles. Whatever happens, one thing is certain, the following years will not be peaceful.

--------------------------------------------------

April 16th, 2002

Dalandzadgad Air Space, Mongolia (3:03 am)

Darkness covered the city of Dalandzadgad in an eerie, cold silence. Not a significant soul outside their homes, too early for the stores to open. It was a prefect time for someone to slip in unnoticed. Dalandzadgad is not, what you call, a respectable city, trash laid everywhere and dust covered everything, and to make matters worse, the city's bums made it impossible for anyone to drive around at night without running over someone, whether a hobo or another vagabond. And the corrupt officials didn't help at all, if fact, they make it a lot worse, and this is why D-001 was sent here, to clean out the system. Of course, you should not praise the IG for this noble act, they would have never consider such an operation if it were not for selfish reasons. Officials in Dalandzadgad went too far, and the IG would have to teach them lesson: Never under any circumstances should anyone interfere with the Internal Government of the United States of America. Ever.

--------------------------------------------------

April 16th, 2002

Four-hundred feet under the Bay of Bengal (3:15 am)

Mission Command inside the Coverthound (Satellite Transmission)

"Alright, listen D-001, this is the Mission Coordinator. We can provide you with very little support. Unfortunately, this is a 'rush job' so we were not able to obtain any Russian handguns, so you're stuck with an ASP pistol with only two clips, which is more than enough if you aim for the head. Do not leave any American materiel behind; the ammo is Russian so there is no need to recover the casings."

"The Hyperion III has released the two armed UAV's; they will commence circling the city. One of the UAV's can paradrop a Chinese AK-47 if need arises."

"Okay, you're about 2 miles from the point of interest; remember, all we know is that there are two Russians, three Al Qaeda operatives, and several Dalandzadgad policemen. You only have 16 rounds so use them well, kill everyone and recover the nuclear device. Make sure you destroy the evidence with the FIIED. Over"

--------------------------------------------------

January 5th, 2031

San Diego, California, US, Earth

Excerpt from Nuclear Recovery Officer Pat C. Johnson's voice recording. Submitted January 5th, 2031 (Historical Records).

"You would think, the Russians, with all their expertise in espionage and camouflage coupled with rigorous training would be a lot more precautious about their presence. But one sweep from a spy satellite and we had them. Those son-of-bitches had six police guarding their hideout. Big fucking mistake. Anyways, it should go on the record that the two Russians, Viktor Kamenev and Mikhail Alekperov, were forced to resign from the KGB in 1987 for mental 'instability'. My guess, too much exposure to Xaema, a toxic metallic compound used by the KGB in there equipment.

Kamenev, or as we call him, 'Atomic Viktor', was KBG's Chief Nuclear Advisor; he was the person in charge of researching and implementing new ways of utilizing nuclear material. In fact, Atomic Viktor was the CNA whose research team created the one-kiloton non-ballistic nuclear portmanteau device, back in 1964. It was part of the Soviets 'Total Chaos' strategy against the US. Never worked out, but the Soviets were able to build about 500 suitcases. They disarmed about 350 of them a year after the secret signing of the Chaos Armament Non-Proliferation Treaty (CANT I & II; 1979, 1983) under the SALT treaties. Under CANT II the Soviets destroyed 350 suitcase nukes while the US reduced the number of Meteoroid III CGNRS (Crater Generating Non-Nuclear Reentry Shell)- loaded satellites. They kept 150 suitcases as a safety precaution; somehow they figured if the US ever invaded the USSR and had knocked out all of Russia's ballistic capabilities that blowing up all major Russia cities would be their non-surrender. Well, the Russians had in 2002 only 47 of the original 150 suitcases, scratch three off, Kamenev's research team accidentally detonated one inside their Siberia compound in 1986 destroying two other suitcases along with the entire facility. Boy, what a mess, satellite images showed one giant-ass crater where the facility had been. It was one of the factors that led to his resignation, one-thousand dead or dying and one-million acres of poisoned Siberian land.

That left 100 suitcase nukes unaccounted for. What happened to them? Well, that's a different 'conspiracy'. But the IG knew Kamenev and Alekperov were involved in the garb. Unfortunately, it was in the mid-80s so we didn't have a team to track those weapons. They simply disappeared, vanished from the Russian arsenal with not a single person accountable for the grand larceny. Of course, that did not stop the Soviets from 'cleaning the system' and sending many to the gulags in the process. It was not until 1990 that the IG formed the NARA (Nuclear Arsenal Recovery Agency) under the Nuclear Materials Accountability Act Commission. NARA was responsible for acquiring all weapons-grade nuclear material from all 'unfriendly forces' (including mother nature) through the use of espionage, research, and force. By 2000, IG NARA was able to recover: ten broken arrows, fourteen tons of weapons-grade uranium, eighteen IRBMs, two ICBMs, twenty dismantled cores, four tons of radioactive waste, and 23 of the original 100 missing suitcases, two which were converted into rocket-propelled missiles. It would be in Operation Morning Star in Mongolia that NARA would acquire the 24th.

Alekperov, the 'Bastard', is a strange one. We don't really know who he is; some within the intelligence community believe Alekperov was the Soviet's very own D-001. Of course, the Bastard was Soviet designed, extremely primitive compared to the American counterpart; it was 2002, Alekperov had been in operation since 1985 and has since become quite damaged. While in a mission in Kazakhstan back in 1992 one of our snipers managed to severely mangle the Bastard's right arm and foot. But don't underestimate Alekperov, he has killed five of our agents already, including the famous Ghoststalker himself.

--------------------------------------------------

It was a pop. So indistinguishable it could have been mistake for one of the many mysteries of the city. But, then—Pop. Pop. And with three rounds the three policemen guarding the hideout's front fell. They were lucky he was such a good shot. They never knew what hit them. The first shot went straight through one of the officer's temple obliterating his skull cavity. The other two shots followed quickly, before the other two policemen even realized the situation they were eliminated in the same fashion.

Gunfire alarmed the other guards protecting the back. And one by one, as they emerged from the sides of the house they too felt the glory of precious weaponry. Pop. Pop. Pop. All headshot. All done in the dark – with a crude pistol in a matter of ten seconds.

He was not finished. In the confines of a minute, he waltz right into the house and finished his first clip and emptied half of his second clip into the sleeping Al-Qaeda and Mongolian police officers. And with the four rounds he had left he 'woke' Kamenev. Kamenev was a notorious deep sleeper, especially if the evening prior involved a glass or two of vodka. Up on the second floor, with only his immense strength of his left arm, he grabbed the copper doorknob and broke the locked by simply turning it in a quick but definite jerk. The IG will not lose their objective this time; there was no more barriers, no more doors, no more hesitation. With a pop the first round shattered Kamenev left tibia and the second round ricocheted of the right tibia and had lodged itself into the right fibula – in other words, he won't be moving around too much. The third round—well, let's just say: if he had live he would have been considered -- useless.

"Ahhhhh! What have you done?" Kamenev yelled as he leaped up from his bed only to discover his legs failed under his own weight. He hit the ground hard as his legs snapped; bone punctured through the skin. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

"Viktor Kamenev. No need to worry. All that exposure to radiation should have left you impotent. And you won't be needing your legs, too." This was a message relayed from Commander Newman through the Machine. Newman had known Atomic Viktor from the Puppet War, back when he was an active agent. The day Atomic Viktor shot Newman through the leg was the day Newman retired. But before he was evacuated to safety, Newman promised Viktor one thing: "Before I'm dead I'm gonna shove your balls so up your ass you'll have to send an entire team of KGB agent up your rectum to recover what's left of them, Fucker!" Well, close enough.

"You fucking American pig! Guards!" Atomic Viktor sat in a pool of blood as he lay against one of the walls next to his bloodied bed. It was dark, the lights were off. He could not see his attacker. "Guards! Where are my fucking guards?"

D-001 walked closer to Atomic Viktor. His big, black boots took short but intimidating steps. Viktor could see the moonshined outline of his attacker's body as it passed the only window in the room. Viktor was starting to sweat and he was breathing heavily, the adrenaline had eased the pain enough for him to pull himself onto his bed. D-001 reached down to his right boot where he cleaned off a clot of gooey substance with his hand and pulled it up to his darkness-hidden face. "I found a piece of one of your guards. Will this be adequate?"

"Who are you! CIA?"

"Please, the CIA couldn't investigate there way out of a paper bag. Now, I'm the one doing the questioning, Atomic Viktor."

"You're from the IG aren't you? You fucking spy I'll never give you information, ever!"

"Where are the remaining suitcases?"

"Fuck you! You can't fucking hurt me with that fucking American gun!" Motioning at D-001's hand, Viktor was somewhat right, it did look pathetic, especially in this lighting, hell, D-001's hand was even bigger than the gun. But, Commander Newman made sure the last shot fired would be 'special'.

"Well, I tried." D-001 extended his pistol and blew Atomic Viktor's brains out. Brain remnants plastered all over the back wall. Viktor's body slouched sideways, from his jaw down. "Prototype 9 millimeter explosive round."

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't see Alekperov anywhere."

"Roger, D-001, he must have expected us then." Mission Coordinator turned his head towards the person standing next to him, Sergeant Major Rei. He was a person of disputable importance, of alluring mystery; truly, out of this "world". And yet, he was here. He was about "6'2"; straight-backed and experienced, as one in his position should be. His sapphire eyes moved mechanically, reflexively over the monitors absorbing the real-time feeds. He looked younger than most of the servicemen onboard, he was, maybe 35. Who knows? He was blond so any gray hairs would be easily looked over.

"Have your staff on high alert. Order HP Control not to lose D-001's operational command no matter what the cost; he is still very unstable. Coordinator, have those UAV teams on patrol and monitor mode around the point of interest."

"Got it! UAV group A and UAV group B encircle the structure, stay out of small arms range. K.C., I'm sending over a message to HP Control, coded and relay it for me."

Who was he? Sergeant Major Rei? Out of the twenty years he had been here he had never met this man and yet, he's here. Almost out of thin air, this blond, intelligent person starts acting as an IG SP Sergeant Major. He did not seem like them, he does not seem to hold the same beliefs as them or the same goals. And yet, he's here. The IG, it's changing, everything is. Here he was an ignorant mission coordinator doing the same thing he's been trained to do for the past twenty years. It seemed he's world has not changed and yet, he's here. So what does this mean?

--------------------------------------------------

"Mission Control, this is PH Control, everything is nominal you have nothing to worry about." Mayberry spoke over the communications. He turned to Newman who was now monitoring the situation closely over his laptop. "Well, I hope you have more workers Commander Newman. I'm seeing over 900,000 irregularities. There are over 660,000 software errors and about 3,000 serious errors. Jeez, you would think Microsofty designed it!"

"Fix what you can. The NS-5 itself should fix most of the anomalies."

"Are you sure?" Mayberry scanned through the many monitors, trying to fix what he could. "JJS-1444 program…Rebooting!"

"Mayberry, Aimee's assisting the NS-5; try concentrating on only the serious system errors."

"Got it!" Working with at a lightening fast pace, Mayberry tracked and rebooted every program his fingers could type off. Easy work until, "Jeez, look at this, his metabolism just spiked!" His eyes widened as he brought out the results. "He's burning calories at the rate of 2451.1 calories an hour! Man, body temp sensor warning light just came on! NS-5's reporting a serious glitch in the main directory. It's the RER converter module! It's gone berserk!"

"Jeez!" Mayberry gasped, "It may take me a while to fix, Commander."

Commander Newman took a stance next to Mayberry. "Fix it, now!"

--------------------------------------------------

D-001 searched the entire house for the supposed suitcase nuke. He finally found the mini-nuke hidden cleverly on top of a coffee table; and there was nothing else of interest inside the house. D-001 should know, the IGSP built him with the ability to view his surroundings in several modes. He had no use for imaging device since his eyes were built to accommodate an assortment of visual settings. Slightly near the pupil on the iris are shallow, circular impressions by which D-001 can see in infrared, some of these impressions are meant for low light amplification, others – classified, but rumors has it D-001 has the ability to sense the movement of particle waves: sound waves. Some other views are achieved also but they're yet to be declassified by the Internal Government's Special Projects bureau.

--------------------------------------------------

"This isn't good!" Mayberry shouted, "It won't be long before we lose D-001!"

"Damn!" It was all the Commander could say.

"EHD sensor nearing 70 degrees Celsius!"

"Reboot the Dahlz Program!"

"Are you sure? That controls everything!"

"Do as I say!"

--------------------------------------------------

D-001 was collecting the bodies of the dead policemen from the outside. What was it, six bodies? Good thing people here mind there own business. With out much effort he lifted the body of this one, fat cop up to arms length and began to the house; the caved in face of the officer left a trail of blood on the ground. The Machine reached the small, three-step stair of the front entrance path when underneath him, all of a sudden, he felt tiny needles pricking his feet and then his arms. He became nauseated, dehydrated; his sensitivity to the world had become dulled. His vision darkened and he grew deaf; he could not feel the dead body he was carrying or the ground underneath him. He could not tell if he dropped the fat man or if he was still standing. His breathing stopped, so too his heart. There was nothing—like purgatory; absolute void.

Everything was gone.

But as his mind and all its processes faded, as by miracle, a tiny fraction of his eyesight was regained. All he could see were tiny, blurry, white dots floating in the deep, cool reaches of the void which was left of his environment. Bonding, collecting, forming into a single larger, blurry, white dot. Slowly it appeared as if the white dot was morphing into something familiar. The image wasn't so blurry anymore. It appeared as though the image of a female he wasn't too sure he met materialized. A woman or were there two? D-001 could not tell. But it seemed to be calling him. "My child." In the void the voice became pronounce, "Listen." One of the women turn her head to her side were D-001 could see a blue-haired girl staring into the infinite distance. "She will free you." The blue haired girl turned her sight towards D-001. "When the time comes, child." A small smile accumulated on her face, "When the time comes." He's 'vision' focused on the unique eyes of that girl, every ripple on her irises, very variation and pattern of hue pigment burned on to his mind. Those eyes—all he could do was stare at her eyes; even when the vision began to fade—those eyes remained.

--------------------------------------------------

"Program restarted, Commander!"

--------------------------------------------------

D-001 awoke, suddenly, finding his face smeared in brain juice and blood, tiny fragments of skull poked his skin was he tried to remove the bio-soup from his face. He got up from upon the fat corpse and stood for a moment regaining his senses. After awhile he garbed the body he dropped and threw it through the flimsy door and into the building. He went back for another body, this time it was a malnourished boy. He picked that body up and as he was about to entire the building he looked up into the sky—wondering if those lights up there would form into something. But nothing came.

--------------------------------------------------

Within the bright flash the house was consumed by the extreme temperature. Everything inside the house was obliterated. The FIIED device had worked! Instantaneously, the thermal device burst into a flash of absolutely intense heat. Feeding off the oxygen so quickly it created a vacuum of pressure so promptly re-pressurized that it collapsed the exoskeletons of the building.

Satisfied with the work, the Machine collected his tools and the nuke, and covered himself with the cloak he brought with him and headed out of town. Of course, by this time, some one must have called the cops, for a couple Al-Quada jihaders showed up packed on top of a beat-up truck. Mission Control had already intercepted the call and had flown a UAV towards D-001. The UAV buzzed down like the Stukas of half a century ago and unloaded the Chinese AK-47, the Type 81, down towards its target. D-001 catches it in mid-air, cocks it and switches the safety off and unloads the magazine at the truck. The truck comes riddled with bullet holes as it swerves off the road crashing into a house.

Once done reloading, D-001 is ordered to steal a car and get out. He did what he was told. Heavy-footed and excited D-001 pushes his stolen, rusty Mercedes V8 engine to a constant 120 miles an hour. Holes and bums in the road rattled the nonexistent suspension of the vehicle stupid. Once out of the city, the old Mercedes passed several rushing cars heading towards Dalandzadgad. Most all of them did a complete U-turn upon seeing the Mercedes; except for one which wasn't so lucky.

Down this desert road, the sun was rising, welcoming the earth with its warmth. The sky, a spectrum of colors: from the west, a bleak blackness, and the farther east: blue, then light blue, orange, and yellow toward Dalandzadgad where the sun's rays enveloped the city and all that laid east.

They where mafia cars that where catching up to the Mercedes. D-001 pointed the assault rifle in back of him and used the mirror to aim, he wasted his final clip on the lead car, destroying the front-left side of the car and popping the driver's side wheel sending the 159 mile an hour car into a mad flight and to a complete spin in the air; D-001 could see a tiny spec of body had ejected out of the vehicle as the car came rushing down disappearing into the desert's sands. The constant gunfire was homing down on the discolored Mercedes. The now lead car had steadied itself to where a goon with a RPG had pop out of the sunroof and aimed that RPG at the ever closer Mercedes. The Mafioso watched and waited for the best time to launch the grenade at the black Mercedes. The cars were coming into a turn where the goon had a broad-side view of the car. Here was his chance and he took it! Pressed the trigger and—the car burst into piece by the cannon fire of one of the UAVs. What was left of the car had dashed out of the curved road into some bushes. That old Mercedes had a close call but the UAVs were finally within firing distance. One of the UAV aimed at the last Mafia car and fired its single forty-pound rocket. The rocket screeched down at the car slamming the asphalt in back of it. The force sent the car flipping butt first onto a large rock where it burst into flames.

And the Mercedes kept heading west at a hundred and forty-something miles an hour. Somewhere in the desert was his flight out of there.

--------------------------------------------------

Masaki Residence, Okayama, Japan

The evening had been very uneventful at the Masaki residence. Too routine. Sasami was making diner while the rest of the females of the family lazily stretched themselves on the sofas in the living room. Ayeka, the only one still awake flipped through the channels on the new HD TV that replaced the TV she broke 'accidentally'; Tenchi's father had gotten several international channels, too (248 channels to be exact). Ayeka should know, half her day was spent in front of the warm glow of the TV. "Forty-eight romance and drama channels", Ayeka remembered what Nobuyuki said,"18 news stations, 24 learning channels, 53 comedy, general entertainment, and music channels, 88 channels from this place called America, and—seventeen channel you probably don't want Sasami to see." So after flipping through 100 channels Ayeka had landed on WNN (World News Network) International: "News on the hour, every hour, from everywhere."

"…Gang violence has rocked the city of Dalandzadgad this morning…sources say the violent confrontations between rival gangs and police started when a routine drug raid on a meth lab went haywire when someone set the explosive chemicals inside the house on fire. Eight Dalandzadgad officers are confirmed dead…violence also spread just outside the city; believed to be the work of the Russian mafia…"

Ayeka yawned was she flipped the channels for something more interesting. And, wouldn't you know it! There was! "Sasami! Good Eats is on!"

"I'm coming, Ayeka, let me just get my pen and notebook! He's making cheesecake this time, right!"

"Mmm-hmm!"

* * *

Part Two of Canto Two of Chapter One

* * *

March 15th, 2002

The automatic sliding doors to the PH-Lab opened as Mayberry entered. He has not been sleeping well lately, something about monitoring a faux-human killing machine just seems to bother him too much for rest, he had encountered weird stuff, but this is just too weird. He is now the operator of the most advanced US weapon ever created—well, at least that's what he believed. Whether he wanted to or not. _Why me!_ True, why him, after all, this is the most advanced weapon on earth, the pinnacle of human technology, the key project of the IG SP, _isn't?_ Wouldn't a person more acquainted with D-001 and Project HEAD be better suited for this position? _Or have they gone and liquated them, too._

"PH-Lab" is the nickname of one of Project HEAD's research facilities that houses D-001. Like the other facilities inside the "Frozen Fortress" PH-Lab was clean and high tech. The walls were painted white with aluminum trimmings and wide aluminum kick-guards. Ventilation openings marked every hall and room in this facility; they were, after all, over seventy miles underground. "Space Age" materials were built into everything around here, advance "_polyesters"_ and "_plastics_" and "_foams_" _but not just any foam, no, you fool! NASA synthetic! Nonflammable! Indestructible! Nano-structured! "Space Foam!" and it comes in white and dirty yellow!_ The floors and roofs tiles are made also of aluminum. It reminded Mayberry of that museum in Madrid, Spain. That and coke cans. The aluminum.

Mayberry walked through the main hall to the last sliding doors where that "machine" was kept. Mayberry was carrying a disc of some sort, in a black DVD case that read: "NorTec E-motion Emulator Module Activation Program for the Custom 4500 XL 777 Z-Tec PAI-1000 Progressive Artificial Intelligence CPU…Not Compatible with Windows." He was supposed to upload this program into the machine, why? No one told him, they are still censoring most of the contents around him. And even after he became the darn Master Chief Analyst of Special Projects for Project HEAD!

He saw D-001 on the cold metal (presumably aluminum) medical table sitting straight up and stolid. He was wearing a pair of grey-dyed cotton shorts that barely went below his knees and matching shirt. He was tall, much taller than Mayberry expected, according to the medical records subject D-001 was 188 centimeters tall, about 7'2, and growing, he was expected to reach 7'5 in a few years. He was also very muscular, especially in the legs, it was lean muscle not the kind weight-lifters amass but he had more of a boxer's physique. D-001 appeared pale, Caucasian, with short jet-black hair and equally dark eyes, he didn't seem Anglo-Saxon to Mayberry he looked more like a – _Spaniard_, in a good way. His face was sculptured by the muscles in his face and the youthful skin stretched over it with no noticeable facial scarring. But, the thing that interested Mayberry most about D-001 was how young he looked, a teenager, maybe.

"Master CA Mayberry, my body is dehydrated I require liquids to function at normal capacity." D-001 spoke from the medical table.

"Oh right, sure, sure, I'll bring you some Cheerwine in a while if you like." Mayberry walked towards a computer desk on the right wall, an "aluminum" computer desk, and clicked on the computer mouse and inserted the black disc into the drive and began to upload the program into D's main CPU; he also brought up D-001's current body diagnostics, "Tell me, D-001, do you have an age?" Mayberry said out of curiosity, turning his head towards D with a raised eyebrow.

D answered stolidly, "Your question is too vague, Master CA Mayberry, could you be speaking about the age of the body I'm operating or the date my Progressive Artificial Intelligence Operating System began functioning at self-conscience levels?" His voice was deep and emotionless, no real sign of a human underneath it all.

Mayberry walked towards the entrance of the door and laid his back on a metal support beam (aluminum, everything was aluminum, "Space Age" after all) and folded his arms across his chest, "Tell me both – tell me when you first 'existed'."

"The age of the body I am operating is over fourteen years. Born around 2:30 PM on April 23rd 1988. No further details are available. Date of initial Z-Tec PAI-1000 Progressive Artificial Intelligence Operating System testing: December 3rd of 1996. Full incorporation of OS system: December 9th 2000. Will that be all?" D-001 finished.

"Fourteen, are you a superannuated machine from the Puppet Wars?" Mayberry adjusted his glasses.

"Negative," D affirmed, "I became fully functional in late 2000. This body you see in front of you belonged to a now deceased human."

"A deceased human?" Mayberry unfolded his arms and lurched forward, he studied D-001's body carefully. "You inhabited a dead boy?"

"Negative, the vessel was still alive during the initial operation." He said almost robotically.

_So, this is why he looks human. What sort of creations has the IG been up to?_

"Who was this boy?" Mayberry said. If the IG wasn't going to give him any non-censured information then their creation could prove satisfactory.

"That is classified; higher clearance is needed to access those files."

"Files?" _Damn, I guess this isn't doing to be easy._

"Yes, I'm connected to the facilities database; anything you want to know can be accessed through me, with clearance. Master CA."

Mayberry refolded his arms and walked in a circle around D-001, though not particularly looking at D-001. Lost in thought, he wanted to see how much information he could squeeze off him. He couldn't help it; curiosity was a habit he could not shake off. "Then tell me, what is Project HEAD?"

"Project Human Enhancement and Development is an Internal Government's Special Projects program designed to give the IG and the United States an edge over its enemies in both combat and intelligence. During the Puppet Wars, 1961 to 1989, Special Projects formed a team of decorated scientists in order to create an army of highly-trained super soldiers to combat the Soviet Union's expansionism, called Project 273, it failed to reach its goals and was subsequently dissolved by 1987. Fortunately, the IG SP gained valuable research information from Project 273 that was later applied to Project HEAD. Project HEAD was assembled in January of 1992 in accordance with SKIA to produce a batch of prefect soldiers."

"SKIA?" He heard of SKIA before, _but where?_ Somewhere in the endless paperwork he had retyped?

"All files on SKIA are classified." D-001 said.

"Very well, continue." Mayberry resumed walking.

D-001 began where he left off, there was a slight hint that what D-001 has saying had been scripted previously. Mayberry could tell those words where not his but someone else's. D-001 was intelligent but he lacked interaction between people that would make him use words like 'fortunately'. Was he regurgitating his master's words, was this 'thing' really a 'thing'. Mayberry guessed—there is no other possibility. "Unfortunately, Project HEAD failed to provide any living subject by early 1995, the project was sidelined until early 1996 when the IG allocated one-hundred billion US dollars and several veteran scientists into the project."

"Why so?" Mayberry spoke, he became more curious, 1996 was a big year for strange stuff in the Internal Government, and lots of paperwork. Something happened in 1996 that caused the massive restructuring of the IG that was still going on today. "Why did the IG spend so many resources in 1996 for a project that had not produced any results?"

"No files of significance to your question of Project HEAD in 1996 exist. All records have been restricted or deleted due to protocol 147."

"Then, what about 1997?"

"All records of significance to your question have been restricted or deleted due to protocol 147."

Mayberry was getting annoyed. He was starting to understand his limits; but, he wanted to delve deeper. He faced D-001 and spoke. "Is that so, then where do you come in?"

"In August of 1996. I was the first successful prototype. All further records have been restricted or delete…"

"First successful prototype?" Mayberry cutoff D-001 and walked closer to him, Mayberry extended his face close to D-001's.

"Yes." D-001 said in response to Mayberry's aggressive posture.

"You mean there's more!" _I guess they are serious about creating the soldiers of tomorrow._

D-001 did not respond. He no longer concentrated his eyes on Mayberry, something was boiling inside of him and Mayberry could not tell what it was. He face stiffed up a bit and a worrisome frown appeared on D-001's face. _Are these – emotion? _Mayberry thought.

"Well?" Mayberry said, he wanted learn more about the extent of Project HEAD.

"Merle…" D-001 said so quietly Mayberry could hardly hear him. He almost choked say it; the "emotions" were affecting him; he could only assume.

"Merle?" Mayberry noticed that D-001 was looking differently, D-001 was not looking at Mayberry anymore, he could almost detect something like human inside that robot, _but D-001 is a machine! Impossible! Faux emotions, imitations. That program I gave him._ Mayberry couldn't believe that a machine, even as advanced as D-001, can act human, it didn't make sense, D-001's brain was a computer after all and computers can't have emotion. Emotions are illogical and based on the randomness of brain activity and chemical stimulus but computers are based on logical, precise calculations. There could be no such things as an emotional computer. Was the program he gave D-001 acting up. _A glitch? Or is "Merle" a stimuli—trigger word? But, what for? Or did this Merle exist? Codename? _

"Tell me," Mayberry spoke, "what is the Internal Government's main mission?"

D-001 must have suppressed his faux-emotion for he quickly responded: "To protect what is most valuable, at any cost."

"_Most valuable?"_ Mayberry was prepared to ask more questions but they had company. The sliding doors opened and a young female Mayberry had not seen before came in.

She was beautiful, no doubt about it. There was nothing synthetic about her beauty, she seemed fragile almost vulnerable. She had long blond hair and blue eyes. Tall for a woman, about 5'9 and she was somewhat shapely but she was no adult. Mayberry could tell she was also young like D-001, in fact, the strangest thing about the IG was that its member where either too young or too old, very few middle-age men, like Commander Newman or young adults like Mayberry, himself. Mayberry couldn't figure out why this was so. But it didn't really matter to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, were you in the middle of something?" She said in a polite feminine voice facing Mayberry.

"Oh, no, not really. May I ask who you are?" Folding his arms again he stood in a reserved posture. He did not trust beautiful women. All beautiful women were asses to him, well, at least in high school.

"I'm Agent G from SKIA, and you." She smiled.

"Master Chief Analyst of Special Projects Roger Mayberry from Project HEAD. Now, how may I help you?" Stolid and commanding, at least pretending.

"I would like to speak to my friend over there, please." Pointing at D-001.

"Do you have clearance, Miss – Agent G?" There was something about the people of the Internal Government, none of them ever wanted give their real names. It's probably because the IG is, after all, a secret organization and many people have taken basic espionage training and know not to give too much personal information to anyone, not even to each other. But still, it annoys him.

"Well actually, yes I do, from Harvey Taylor. So, would you please let me speak to him?" She said putting her best sad puppy face.

Masked creatures, could Mayberry trust such animals? Shiftless dolls constantly putting on masks, ones that fit their needs to gain their fill. Were they really that bad? Or was his paranoia finally closing the final door in his psychological framework?

Mayberry nodded, "Go ahead."

"Thank you." G walked towards D-001 and turned her head back, "Oh, can we have some privacy, Mister Mayberry."

Agent G stood some distance from D-001, she was a bit nervous but mostly excited. She was dressed cleanly: a long-sleeved velvet "curve-hugging" blouse with "expensive" blue denim jeans and no jewelry, none of that uniform attire the IG required all its basic workers to wear. She wore some makeup, definitely some red lipstick. It seemed as she was trying too hard not to look like she has trying too hard. Women. 'My, my, what strange tricks have befallen D-001?' Mayberry wondered. 'Be careful and don't let them get to you. Women are a tempest of troubles. If you're not careful. Machine. They will change you.'

"Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, please accuse me." Mayberry walked out of the PH-Lab. Mayberry wanted to know more about Project HEAD but for now, it was better not to ask too many questions, after all, knowledge is a dangerous thing in the Internal Government. But, what did D-001 mean by "to protect what is most valuable?" As far as Mayberry knew the IG was a heartless machine. He just did not understand; the deeper he delves into the system the more confuses he comes. He just doesn't know anymore.

For the rest of today, anyways, Mayberry just wanted to relax. And what better place than an indoor spa resort 73 miles up.

--------------------------------------------------

D-001 looked curiously at Agent G. She walked a little closer to him, "D?"

"Yes. That is…" He said but before he could say anything further Agent G lunged towards D-001 wrapping her arms around his body and giving him a kiss on the lips.

"D, I can't believe it's you, I thought I'll never see you again." She let go of D and stepped back a little and took a closer look at D-001. She rubbed D-001's chest and shoulders with both her arms slightly, "Oh my, how muscular you've gotten."

D-001 was frozen. What the hell just happened? His mind could not comprehend her actions. He did not know what to do or how to respond; no one programmed him to deal with – whatever she just did! He stared confusedly at Agent G.

Her face was flushed; he was staring at her so intensely. So intense she could not look him straight his eyes. She felt so ecstatic.

"How are you, D?" she managed to say.

Alright, now he could respond to this, "I am functioning at normal stability, my internal temperature is at 98.4 degrees Fahrenheit, but my body is dehydrated, I require one liter of H2O and…"

"What are you taking about, D" _Wha..what is this? Some sort of joke! I come all this way just to see him and he's playing a joke on me! Great, thank you, D! _

"You ask about my current condition." D-001 repeated.

"You're kidding me, right?" Okay, know she was getting confused. _Is he joking? _

"No, the information is correct." He said affirmatively.

She sighed, "Well anyways, let's get out of here. I heard Kristina has come back from that long mission and is staying in Norwood. Let's go meet her, it's been so long since we saw her hasn't it?" She could not help but to notice that D-001 had confused expression on his face.

"Excuse me." D said.

"What is it D?" She wasn't all too happy to see him, anymore. He was starting to get on her nerve. How could he be so – unwelcoming to her.

"Do?" He paused, taking a better look at her, "Do I know you?"

"What?" She jumped back, "D, it's me." She couldn't believe what she was hearing! _Was I gone that long? _

"I am sorry; my memory does not recognize you." He said apologetically. The E-motion program was fully operating. He could sense that she was uncomfortable and quite angry.

"You don't know who I am?" She garbed his gray shirt and clutched her knuckles tight and stared him down.

"You are Agent G from SKIA, you are in the IG Secure Database." He said affirmably, though he felt like he did something wrong.

"You don't remember me, do you?" _Jerk._

"We have never met. I am sorry for your confusion, Agent G…"

"I am your friend!" She cried, "your best friend! Damn it!" Her sapphire eyes swelled with tears. How could he have forgotten her? "Your girlfriend!" She said in desperation with a deep hint of anger.

"Negative, I am government materiel; I can not have friends – of any sort, I am sorry for the confusion." He unseated himself from the medical table, the girl still clutch to his shirt.

"What is wrong, D?" She slowly let go of his shirt and stepped back, she faced down she could not bear to see him. "Not even my name?"

"No."

"God, what did they do to you? It's me, Kayla!"

She was beyond furious. She just wanted to garb his head and smash it against something hard, and pointy! Does he really not know who she is? How dare he forget! How can he forget about his one and only – lover! Okay, well, not lovers, _I suppose, we're only barely in are teens but damn it! That's no excuse! _

But before she could do anything drastic Commander Newman walked in on the two. He was surprised to see Kayla here, that and a little displeased.

"Agent G, may I have a word with you." He said it most seriously.

"Yes – Commander Newman" She reluctantly followed Newman out of the PH-Lab. She turned her head to see D before the automatic sliding doors close, he was staring at her while he pressed his right hand's middle and index fingers on his lips with a perplexed expression on his face.

--------------------------------------------------

"Miss G." The Commander said as they walked out of the facility into a different part of the base.

"Commander." She responded head down and reticent. She walked a step behind the Commander throughout the whole thing, she had no more respect for the commander and she dare not give him the honor of equals. Something happened to D and she knew the Commander was behind it.

"Let us discuss things in the privacy of the sanctuary, Miss G." He spoke again in a serious tone.

It was the deepest underground garden in the world, the Flora Sanctuary facility 70 miles underground inside the "Frozen Fortress". Eerily quiescent, the Flora Sanctuary was not a place of archetypal aesthetics, rather a garden only a man of science could appreciate, a less an ethical man of science could appreciate. Rows of evenly spaced out soil plots nourished genetically modified mutant plants of every variety: modified tulips with extremely large pedals, luminescent roses: reds, oranges, whites, all with naturally, genetically, thornless stems and delicate, glowing pedals. The brilliance of the roses was in stark contras to its neighboring red cabbage's purplish-black, all two hundred pounds of it. The air was thick with the warm humidity of the garden's atmosphere. Giant vertical and diagonal florescent-like light columns that stretch from the bottom of the garden to the roof of the room were utterly useless for so little light shinnied through. The columns were the garden's only source of light, and the dark green crawlers that spun around the columns restricted the amount of light they could give off. The leafy crawlers spun around everything, including the walls of the spherical room. This made for a spooky site, but otherwise, refreshing to those inside the "Fortress" who sought an escape from the steel and wired cages of their daily routine.

The two stood on a metal-framed balcony near the entrance of the door, here, no crawlers grew

"What have I told you, Miss G, you can't be walking around here with out my permission, Taylor may have the Fortress under his control but the HEAD facilities are my jurisdiction, understand."

"Commander, I don't really give a shit right now. What the hell did you do with D!" She hated look up at the Commander. Blast it! She should have brought those boots that added five inches to her stature.

"There were complications." He said quite plainly.

"Complications! He doesn't even know who I am!"

"I told you there would be risk involved…"

"But not like this! How could you!" Tears flowed freely from her eyes. She tried to suppress them but there was nothing she could do to make herself stop crying.

"Please understand, it is not easy for me either, but we had no choice, I had no choice, in the process." The commander sighed heavily; there was nothing he could say that would calm her rage. "It was do or don't"

He put his right hand on one of her shoulders, "I apologies for not telling you how high the risk was but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have allowed it." He looked back into the garden, "You must understand it was the only choice I had."

"I know, I know." She dried her tears, "What now?"

"With D-002 AWOL and a crisis emerging, the IG SP is thinking of scrapping Project HEAD and all other non-priority IG SP and SKIA projects." He looked deep into the garden before him, there was nothing more peaceful than nature. For how simple it may look in the outside, a balance is found in its formation. But, there was no equilibrium, not in nature. For all the peace, an equal amount of entropy existed. No matter how simple nature looks, a closer inspection reveals a much more complex system, "Have you spoken to agent K, yet?"

She raised her sad face up, "No, I haven't, I was planning to take D with me to go see her, but now."

"You know, she wanted to speak to you."

"What did she say?" She wasn't too concerned.

"She misses you – and Winters, and D." He faced Agent G, "She also said your sister has joined the IG on her own accord."

"My sis! Why!" She quickly went from sad to angry, "How can my sister do such a thing! She is but a child!"

"You forgot how intelligent she is for her age." He walked to a control panel on one of the walls and increased the amount of artificial light the plants were getting, "Isn't it obvious?"

"I have to go"

"No you can't, you know that and I know that. Your privileges there are severely limited. "

"Commander, is there more I need to know?"

"Yes, the IG has allowed me to pull you out from active duty and use you to train D-001."

"What do you mean?"

"D-001 lacks the basic skills of human interaction. Unfortunately, that is something we cannot program him with."

"And you want me to train him to act human? You got the wrong type of person for the job!" She walked towards the exit, "I'm not normal; I don't know how humans work." She turned back, towards the Commander, "Anyways, the IG is too constricted; the Directors are probably going to rethink their decision and put me back on active duty."

"If Project HEAD is canceled," He pressed another switch, the sprinkler system activated, "D will be terminated. The whole project is too costly for the IG to maintain; we all know that capital must go into the priorities first."

"Listen, Commander Newman," She walked back to him, "If you want D to act more human than I don't suggest having him exposed exclusively to IG members, everyone here in the IG is in state of disillusionment with today's societies, anyways, it's so monotonous it's depressing." She sighed, "If you want D to act something like human than I recommend you get outside help; some one who does not know about D's origins, or the fact that he's basically a walking computerized machine of selective destruction."

"Look, Commander, I can't do it! He looks so much like D but he is dead. I don't think I can look at him without losing heart."

"Well, it has to be some one hired then; normal, free-willed people would not normally familiarize themselves with 'people' like D" The Commander said as he flipped the heater system on.

"You'll be surprised. I wonder how many acquaintances Agent X has."

"This reminds me," he spoke again, "an acquaintance of mine has told me of a very suitable offer that may resolve this problem." He looked back at Kayla, "Also, it may kill two birds with one stone. If the offer is accepted it could give Project HEAD a better chance at staying alive."

"How so?" Kayla said.

"The Directors have been contemplating on how to perform the first part of the Stardust Operation without risking detection, if I eliminate the highest risk factor and contain the risk within my division than the Directors would have no choice but to maintain Project HEAD for the sake of the Stardust Operation."

"Do what need to be done, isn't what you have taught me?"

"Common sense cannot be taught: only learned," He saluted Agent G, "Carry on."

* * *

End of Episode One: Canto Two

* * *


	4. Chapter Two: Canto Three

_003 Beta 0.6.5_

* * *

Somewhat Damaged

By Sir Eval Sweetwater

* * *

Anthology One

* * *

Episode Two

The Becoming

* * *

Canto Three

Bathwater

* * *

There is something strange about waking up early in the morning after years of sleeping in. The quietness is quite pronounced, not of the outside, nature never sleeps; shifts but never sleeps. No, the quietness is within the household. It was much liking to what she believed happened long before a play was to take place. The stage is empty and all of the actors—actresses are yet to present themselves. Be it such, there would be no reason for lights for there is no drama to be played out just yet. 

Oh, god! On with the show! What is taking so long! Who is at fault for the leading actress to have arrived early? Certainly not her! Oh heavens, no! She didn't plan to be in such a state. She was forced, most certainly she was! By a force which has not materialized. And now, what could she do with the extra time allotted? Nothing too noisy but what a bore, is there anything she could do inside the house that will not disturb everyone else? How does Sasami do it! She's ways up by 5:30—two hours from now and manages to do so much without waking up everyone else.

Well, there is one thing she needed to address. The nightmare that woke her had caused quite the sweat bath. Even with fresh clothes she felt unclean, her clammy body and damp hair just felt so filthy, "I need a bath!"

She was surprised how unwearied she was for sleeping only for three hours. Comparable to three cups of strong tea, she thought. Then, again, she was a bit woozy, and gravity seems a bit less relative, too.

"Boy, I guess this is how Mihoshi must feel." Out of her room with a fresh set of clothes in her arms she walked the dark hall quietly, not to wake the others. Her motor skill weren't at their peak. That strange medicine she took had several miserable side effects, but better than feeling the full effects of this human virus she was currently fighting, "Ugh! It has been such a horrible week."

_---_

"_Washu, what is wrong with me. I feel terrible." Blue with sickness she laid in a traditional bed in a room Washu made just to treat her._

"_You caught the flu, specifically, a T7 strain, from Tenchi, he has it too. I'm surprise. Only the two of you are infected." Washu appeared wearing a nurse's uniform and sat down next to Ayeka._

"_What does that mean?"_

"_Well," grinning, "T7 variant can only be transmitted through bodily fluids."_

"_What are you implying?"_

"_I'm saying that maybe you two shouldn't have done what you two did Friday."_

"_Ah, we—didn't do anything!" Ayeka became flush at the thought._

"_Is that so?"_

"_Really, Washu, mind our privacy. And for the record we didn't do anything."_

"_Lies! I have a high-definition video of the incident on my main computer!"_

"_You have a what?" Jumping from the bed and grabbing Washu by the collar._

_Resisting Ayeka's threatening posture, "A video of you two, it's kind of cute, I have to admit."_

"_Oh, my! That's impossi—ble?" The holographic screen pops out and a video starts playing. The camera is focused on a red-faced Ayeka. _

_"Oh, my, Tenchi please don't. You don't have to!" _

"_Hah! See!" Washu points at the screen._

_"Don't worry, you're going to like it."_

_What if Ryoko finds us! She'll kill us! You know how she is._

_"It's okay, I think she will understand."_

_"I don't think she would."_

_"Don't worry about it. Enjoy it!_

_"I don't know."_

_"Here, suck on this."_

_Ayeka turns to Washu in utter annoyance, "Wa-washu?"_

_"Oh, my! Very tasty!"_

"_Washu!"_

_"Oh, I'm sorry! Kind of spilled a little bit on your blouse" The camera zoom out to where clearly Tenchi and Ayeka are seen sharing a single milkshake._

"_WASHU!"_

_Washu happily turns to meet a very angry Ayeka, "Yeah?"_

"_Do you have to make everything an innuendo? We were out shopping and Tenchi suggested we go to the SnackShack for shakes. We spent our money quickly—they were awfully expensive and we could only afford one and they charged us for the straw, too!"_

_Washu gives her trademark evil laugh and then turns to the console where she picks up a brownish clear bottle and gives it to Ayeka, "Here, it's medicine, without this, you'll probably die. Juraians have a short history with the flu compared to human, so—take it."_

_---_

"That Washu!" Ayeka was getting a headache. It was becoming more difficult to walk, and now she had to go down the stairs. "Ugh!" She lost her balance momentarily; thankfully, she managed to support herself on the wooden rail. Unfortunately, the rail snapped slightly and made quite loud noise.

"I have to be more care, and not wake up anyone." Especially, Sasami, sure she's an early bird, but she has a tendency to be a little grumpy if her circadian clock is disturbed even slightly. Predictability: _"Ayeka! Why you'd wake me up!" _and_ "I need my baby rest!"_

Mid-stairs she stopped. A smile grew on her face, a tad blush, "but you're not a baby anymore, you're a young lady, Sasami." She said to herself.

Ayeka sometimes felt like—well, like a mother, the pain of it, and, admittedly, the fulfillment of the experience. If there was one chore she didn't mind doing, no matter how tedious, was making sure her little sister was okay. Even if she didn't like showing it.

"_Ayeka, my mouth's dry! I need water."_

"_Ayeka, can we go see the carnival?"_

"_Ayeka, I fell. It hurts!"_

"_Ayeka! Please stop mommy and daddy from fighting!"_

"_Ayeka! Ayeka! Help! I think I started a fire in the kitchen!"_

"_Ayeka! Ayeka! Ayeka!"_

She sighed, "You know, sometimes, I don't know if I'm ready for Sasami to grow up." She closed her eyes. Hopefully, maturity will not corrupt her sister as did—well, that's not important. No, Sasami is Sasami; she will always be who she is.

"_Will she?"_

"Huh?" She opened her eyes and looked around; she didn't notice it until now but it was dreadfully dark. She could not see the top of the stairs or the bottom; she repressed her thoughts of things that bump in the night but…

"_Will she be, who she is?"_

Was her mind playing tricks? She could have sworn she heard someone speaking.

"Ryoko? Are you down there?" She whispered. No one answered but the still of the night.

She quickly went down the rest of the steps and to the nearest light source. In the rush of thing she stumbled on an object and face-plated on the wooden floor.

"Aw!" Her head as throbbing from the pain, "I should be more careful." She sighed, "If only I had some light!"

And wouldn't you know it! The lights in the kitchen turned on!

"Wa-washu? Ryoko? Everyone there?" She got up from the floor in the living room and headed towards the kitchen. There was nothing to be scared of—right? Washu has this place secure. Isn't that what she said?

A small shrivel ran down her spine has she saw no one in the kitchen. "Creepy, but who could have turned the lights on?"

"_A ghost?"_

"Nah, I don't believe in such childish…" She froze solid in her spot. This time she was definite she heard someone—something inside the house.

She turned around and stared into the darkened living room. "W-who there! I'm not afraid of you!" No one responded, she was completely alone in her situation. "Is my mind playing tricks?"

She listened carefully for a few seconds but there was no significant noise to suggest anyone was downstairs.

"I'm going insane, aren't I." She sighted again, mornings just weren't her 'thing'.

After a few moments, she regained her composure; this was not the way a princess should behave. Then again, out of the one-hundred something governments on Earth, none she could claim any position. She was a princess without a kingdom, no, not here at least.

She looked at her surrounds again and after a second of scanning the area she homed in on the refrigerator. "Well, since I'm in the kitchen, I better see what we need for today's big celebration."

It was Sasami's 13th birthday! Add 700, though, can you really count the time she was in space inactive? Besides, she thought to herself jokily, where is she going to find all the flour she'll need to make a cake big enough to fit seven-hundred and thirteen candles?

"We're going to need some butter and eggs." According to Juraian tradition, at age thirteen a girl turns into a woman. Ayeka didn't have any trouble with the concept; it was just that Sasami was still her baby sister. Then again…

---

A Month Ago

It was early in the day, five past six; the earliest Ayeka has ever woken up after some serious partying (mass consumption of sake). And the first blurry thing she saw was that of her sister next to her futon.

"Wow, you're awake, I thought I was going to have to wait another hour." Sasami said as she repositioned herself next to her sister.

"Sasami, what is it? Your sister has a bit of a headache right now and..."

"Oh, Ayeka!" She clasped her hands.

"Huh? Oh my, what is it my Sasami?" Ayeka lifted herself carefully up to avoid increasing the strength of the headache.

"Well…" Sasami's face got beet red, "Um, I—I'm…"

"Sasami, what's wrong." Ayeka seriously tried to pay attention but that feeling of throwing up was coming. "Your big sister is here; please tell what it the matter?"

"I'm…" She leaned towards her sister and whispered, "I'm bleeding."

Ayeka forced her eyes towards Sasami; that feeling of sickness had just about passed.

"Better get that treated," She viewed her sister more carefully and grabbed one of her sister's arms and examined it, "Where you'd cut yourself?"

A sweat drop formed in the back of Sasami's head, "Are you serious?"

"Of course, I'm serious…" She drunkenly stared at her sister for a few seconds when it hit, "Oh, my! You don't mean to say!"

"Say what?"

"You're bleeding!"

"That's what I just said!"

---

"She's blossoming but I hope our bond won't wither." She shook off the thought, "I'll go shopping after I take a bath."

---

Outside the Onsen

Through the trees, under the shrub, half-submerged in mud and organic material there lay a ghost, a phantom of the moment, only there specifically as fate desired.

While they say the mountains are inhabited by demons, monsters who hunger for the flesh of their next feast; there are bigger threats that consume more than what is there. Devouring their prey from a distance. Feasting on the reflected radiance of its prey onto which holds truth. As long as the integrity is genuine, the fill is plenty. For even the smallest nibble, there is enough to sustain and grow.

And what better subsistence is as expansive as truth? Truth is all-consuming; every morsel it slobbers down, every slice of delicate insight fattens it and makes it more savory to the hunter which he himself needs to feed. Nourishing not only soul but the mind, and naturally, the body will as the mind commands.

No, there is no other such substance so rich and fulfilling. And yet, how easily spoiled it becomes! Soured by vice, discolored by improper handling, ruined by cross contamination—even while preserving the article one must be quite careful not too over salt it and dehydrate the substance into jerky, while it has its delights, loses a degree of favor.

To truly have a decent meal, the hunter must carefully select the best parts. And that involves a lot of waiting, but at last, the hunter need not wait another minute, here comes breakfast!

---

Ayeka walked down the path to the onsen which hovered over that lake. It was dark, but Washu had installed luminescent devices on the sides of the path, they were not very bright and did not light up the area very well but after last month's energy bill, they could live with this.

It takes a while to reach the onsen, which presented a problem. So much time alone in the dark can work up the mind. Ayeka began to notice the movements in the forest on the sides of the path. Every now and then, she could hear the faint noise of nocturnal animals as they traverse the land just meters away.

"They won't harm me." Or would they? Who knows? There could be wild and hungry wolves, big and furry bears, or even colossal and slimy hecklegawables! The list is expansive and just as frightening.

"Oh, my." She increased her pace.

---

"Hmm, getting a little scared there princess?" It's quite amusing to see such a prominent person of such power to be so afraid of little more than her own mental interpretations of environmental stimuli. How can these beings be so spooked over things that simply aren't there? Stupid life forms. Truly, a species well deserving of extinction. Too long have these carbon-life forms evolved, and yet more remains for such a pathetic species. When will they force themselves to adapt, instead of trying to control their environment? If never, they truly will be no more then animals.

The "ghost" adjusted his scope on his rifle-like device. He took steady aim and tracked his target.

"Come into view. Little closer." She was only meters away, "A little more." Through the scope he could visibly see her face; he could clearly see her wide-opened eyes and their ruby hue. "Crimson." The ghost focused in on her eyes, whose objects of unique color and grain. Even in the darkness he could see the pattern of the irises' with his superb vision, rays of amber, bourbon, rose, cherry, burgundy spread circularly from her pupils as if they were twin suns very close to setting on the horizon. Yes, very so, copper splinters exiguously imbedded in the irises reflected the low transmittance of the rifle scope sensor so as to cause slightly visible halos around the irises, imitating the appearance of close-by stars on the night-vision scope.

"Those eyes," the ghost peered calmly through the scope, "those eyes, come to me."

Finally, when she was within range, he tensed himself and put his finger to the trigger. "Princess, it's time."

A shot echoed through the forest valley.

---

Small vibrations. An echo of floating particles shaking violently electrified the—space around. Up and down her exposed skin she felt the increased charge of the atoms. Seeping through her appendages—slowly channeling the energetic, animated molecules deeper through her veins. Farther, farther the vibrations reach inside, inundating every fiber of her body with its soothing, manifesting warmth.

Slowly it spread, till every inch of her existence was infected with it. So evenly accommodated the fire within her that she felt so melted, dissolved into a liquefied mass of truly—nothing. A mist, maybe, flowing through the void that has become her reality. So spaced, so quiet, so completely lost in a sea of nothing. Nothing.

What has happened? Why? Why—is everything—nothing? Is this it? Is this the end? Is this what death feels like? Nothing? After everything—nothing?

"_I feel as though am fading. As though my mind is disintegrating. Feel—am no longer an entity."_

"_Goodbye."_

"_No! What can't be! Who's to say what death really is? This is no purgatory! Am I alive!"_

"And you are."

Particles crashing, colliding in a harmony of fluctuating, pulsing rhythmic ripples ripped through her numb mind. Perceiving, what she made out, a soft whisper in the void. Of someone else, in the desolate expanse.

"And you are, Ayeka, you are."

To respond? How to respond? She was diluted beyond stable organs.

"You will find, Ayeka, someone, who—even with such a degree of difference, so similar in position and destiny like yourself as to be so completely opposite to you."

Numb. In such a deserted state, void of light, void of everything. She felt nothing. Nothing but that voice, a voice of a gentle, and young soul.

"Corrupt you he may, corrupt you he may not. Life isn't about good and evil."

Particles clashingat a greater pace, in tunedwith the waves of sound, the sound of that voice.

"Ayeka!"

The voice vibrated through her, bring with it energy—and with energy matter. The sharper the vibration the more she felt, and more she became.

"Ayeka!"

She felt, she became, she was again.

* * *

Ayeka awoke to find herself bathed and prepped and confused.

* * *

0.6.5

* * *

Note: Version 0.6.5 up obviously. Yeah, I know, it's been months since I have updated and I know that I haven't been able to come up with a new canto (chapter). But well, enjoy 0.6.5; the completed version will arrive when I feel like it. 

Next Update will be 0.9.5, yes that means it's almost done, just the "bath" scene is left.


	5. Chapter Two: Canto Four

_0.1.5_

* * *

Somewhat Damaged

* * *

Canto Four

* * *

Memoirs of a Paradox

* * *

_I have come to the realization that, now, as I look back it has become too late to start over. To let you the truth I don't even know how it really started. It could have quite possibly never happened. I don't know now. I have lost sight of reality, that and a numerous other things. I do not know if I can recollect the events correctly but if you give me your time, for I have so little, I can tell you the tragedy that has become my life. But, don't pity me; I don't need your sympathy! What good is it, anyways? They're nothing but shallow words. You don't even deserve to here my complaints!_

_You know! There should a grand war, well, another one at least. And if need arises, I shall command my mighty army in a war of attrition. Last man standing, I say. I'll put people like you in the frontlines; I won't even give you a weapon. Your sole purpose would be to draw fire, a lot of it. Oh and how dreadfully expensive war can be! I know! Instead of using costly missile and cannons, I'll send people like you into space, just the people, no ships! Too expensive! Oh heavens! I don't want to ruin my nation's economy for a silly war! There in space I'll equip them with – I don't know, stones – a bomb, a bomb apiece! Yes! And I'll send wave after wave of bomb-hugging morons toward the enemy fleets! What a glorious one-sided battle! Who knows, they might be able to take out a ship or two._

_But, hey, if some manage to survive, which I doubt (seeing as most modern navies have automatic targeting), they will be able to and only then will they be able to – no wait, then and only then do they have the right to sympathize; to pity me. To pity anyone. Because you're not being superficial then; how do know to pity if you don't know what suffering really is? Honesty, who do you think you are? You don't even deserve the attention I'm giving you! Shame on me for speaking to the likes of you!_

_But if you leave. I'll be all alone. I don't know what is worse: speaking to you or being by myself. Well, I guess you're not that bad, company's company. At least, stay with me, until my vision darkens and my hands grow cold. Don't worry about the blood. In fact, the sad truth is I like the blood. It reminds me that I exist, that this is not a random dream of someone's. So, it does not bother me, actually, exposed blood is crimson, my favorite color; like my beautiful eyes. At least, the last time I checked they where._

_Well, I better go ahead and tell you about my tragic life before it becomes impossible to do so. But, where do I start – what is that? From the beginning? And where, pray tell, is the beginning? Should I begin my story when I was first born? At the origin of my downward spiral, that has left me the way you see me now? Or, maybe, I should start off the day I first contemplated suicide. Wait, how about the day I was conceived? Hell, my mother has told me about it a dozen times already!_

_Alright, this is how it happened. When a mommy and daddy really love each other they fuck, and fuck like crazy – what? I'm being serious! Hey, I'm not a princess anymore so I don't have to act like one. Anyways, it was during their honeymoon. Oh! How romantic – as my mother described it: 'the Kingdom was jubilant!' Parades, festivals, -- orgies! Everyone was celebrating the holy matrimony of King Asuza and Queen Misaki! And for my mother – she became a virgin no more. They fucked like cabbits! From what I've been told (Funaho, she's such a gossip!). They planned to use contraceptives, but I guess they could not wait another second, many times over. Doctors couldn't even predict the day I'll be born, they could be off by a whole week! Well, they were off by two – and a half!_

_I guess what I'm trying to say is that – even from the beginning, people didn't choose to love me. I was not a lovechild. My parents, like every else, was forced to love me. I was – just there, and they were constrained by my presence. I'm just a constant reminder of my mother's uninhibited sex drive._

_No wait! That's not the whole story. It was not as joyful as my mother predicted; she felt a little betrayed by Asuza. How would you like to be called your husband's second wife while the other wife is still alive and fucking him! I don't remember my childhood very well but from the pictures I have my mother seemed depressed, kind of 'not there', if you know what I mean. She was always trying to be exuberant no matter what the occasion. I think she tried a little too hard; her 'mask' seems to have graphed itself on to her after all these years._

_Besides my little sister, I was never close to anyone. Sasami was never forced into loving me, she chose to love me. I'll tell you, from the very first day, the day she first wrapped her tiny hand around my index finger, I knew we would be close. But I didn't know how close back then; I became bitter at my sister for the longest time. Unlike me, she was planned, in a sense, by my mother when she felt I no longer satisfied her motherly embodiment. She has the lovechild. She was the one who received all the attention, all the benefits of a mother. You know, mother never taught me properly and yet she had enough time in her busy life to teach my little sister the art of cooking; all I got was servants, bloody rude servants!_

* * *

0.1.5

* * *

Note: This is a long preview of Canto Four.


End file.
